Diamonds Arc Story 3: Futures in the Mist
by Galaxia Alpha
Summary: The sequel to Tears at the Crossroads: Mysteriously healed, Remy is called upon by New Son to do a job while he is secretly tormented by strange dreams of an unknown future. Takes place around Uncanny XMen 360. COMPLETE. SEQUEL TO COME.
1. Default Chapter

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Author's Notes

Disclaimer: The X-Men and all other Marvel characters are the property of Marvel Entertainment. They are being used without permission for nonprofit purposes. No violation of copyright laws is intended. Any characters that are created by Galaxia Alpha, should not be used without permission.

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Rating: There is a PG-13 rating on this story for violence and some adult situations. (No sex, no cursing, just some generally mature topics).

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Main Characters: Gambit, Green Ghost Lady (she will get a name), New Son, Courier, and the X-Men

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Things you should know: This story takes place a short time after "Tears at the Crossroad", the story following "Diamonds Etched in Blood", all part of the Diamonds Arc. It is strongly advised that you read those two stories first, before reading this one. The Diamonds Arc breaks off from comic book continuity after the Trial of Gambit and will continue to meander down its own path. J This means that (for those of you who have read the Gambit comics) Courier is _not_ stuck in a woman's body because that never happened in the Diamonds Arc. This also means that Courier and Gambit don't have the friendship they had in the comics. As far as this arc is concerned, they barely know each other. Because I've now strayed from the comics, I have new, added freedoms that I intend to use. J Forget the established identities of the Green Ghost Lady and New Son, I plan to come up with my own explanations for them (so New Son is _not_ Remy from an alternate timeline!). I guess what I'm basically saying is, if you forget what happens in the comics, you should understand everything fine. ;) That's it! Happy reading!

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Special thanks: I owe infinite thanks to both Skyflare and Faile, the two reasons the Diamonds Arc even exists as it does. Not only have they been great beta readers, but they have also been incredibly honest and helpful, willing to listen to ideas and help me find direction. If my stories are worth reading, it is because of them. Love you guys!!!

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Feedback: Thank you to everybody who has sent feedback in the past and will in the future. You cannot realize how much it means to a writer until you have experienced it yourself. I appreciate any and all thoughts and comments, criticisms and ideas, all of which can be sent my way at [galaxia_alpha@hotmail.com][1]

And thus ends the Author's Notes. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the story!

-Galaxia-

Want to see more of my writing? Visit my website at: http://members.tripod.com/galaxia_alpha/

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Prologue

She wanders the streets, hungry, lost, dirty. Her large green eyes stare out at the dark alleys surrounding her, finally dry after loosing all their tears to her sorrow. Streaks trace her cheeks where the mud was washed away by the bitter salt water. Black hair hanging in tangles about her, she looks like any other street rat wandering the alleys in search of a meal. Only she is not quite as emancipated as the rest, not quite as seasoned. There is something about her, an innocence that radiates from her wide, terrified eyes, that says that she doesn't know survival, not the ugly, desperate, demoralizing survival that someone living on the streets knows. Despite the dirt that embellishes her ragged clothes, she is somehow clean.

The hot, sticky air presses down on her, weighting her sagging shoulders, adding to the ever-increasing load she is forced to bear. She walks as quickly as her weakened legs can manage, simply for the sake of doing something even if she has no real destination, and she bursts out of the alley into a wide sidewalk outside of a popular New York City bar. Loud music mingles with the rumble of shouts and laughs and over-enthusiastic conversation. The overflow crowd has tumbled out the door and a few random drunks stumble about, starting on their clumsy journeys home. Wrapping her arms around herself, she makes her way through them, only too aware of her youth and defenselessness, feeling their bodies press against hers as the crowd shifts and sways with the alcohol in its blood. She has never felt so alone.

She mentally prepares herself to begin her rounds of begging in the crowd. There are so many people here; somebody must be willing to help a 12-year old lost on the streets. Taking one small arm and extending it out, she tugs on somebody's expensive looking black suit. The man turns, and smiles, the smile drooping slightly as he seems to notice the condition she's in, and something like pity briefly accents his expression before it is smote out. She suddenly thinks that maybe she is lucky, that maybe this man will give her money.

But money isn't what she gets. "Been waitin' f'r y', petite. Y' an' me, we got some t'ings to discuss." She steps back in surprise, but he has grabbed her outstretched wrist by now and her movement is cut short. His grasp is firm, strong, despite his long white hair and thin frame, and she lets a tiny cry of pain escape her lips. She stares up into his lined, angular face, suddenly wondering what his eyes look like, wishing she could see them and get some insight into who he is, but they are shaded in dark sunglasses. Despite the fact that it is night.

He pulls her and she follows, staring at the ground and biting her lip to keep from screaming. That will only make him mad, and who knows what he will do to her then? She is so scared she can taste it, vile and bitter in her mouth. Why was this happening to her? Hadn't her parents disappearing been enough?

He takes her into a dark alleyway, but just as she has decided that maybe screaming might be the best idea after all, or that maybe she should try to fight him and run, a feeling of calmness shrouds her, one of comfort and safety. She looks up at the man who is gazing at her curiously, loosing all her fear to an invading sense of peace. "Who are you?" she questions in a small voice. He stops walking, kneels down before her. Slowly, he slides off his glasses and she is faced with the most amazing, horrible eyes she has ever seen. Bright, red, burning coals scorch their way into her mind, the black around them sucking her in.

"I'm called de Witness," he says in a rough, Cajun accent, and then adds a moment later, "An' I'm here t' tell y' about your parents."

"What about them?" she asks in a small voice, suddenly terrified again.

His tone is flat, his words simple and direct, "Dey're dead." 

She almost collapses and her heart begins to beat faster than it ever has before. _Dead, dead, dead._

And at that moment, with those words, with those suddenly expressionless eyes staring into her, something inside her changed. That's when the cleanness of her, the innocence, became stained with dirt. 

Because she knew. Maybe it was the coldness in his voice, or the darkness of his eyes, or the insensitivity of his actions, or just a simple intuition. But she knew, somehow, that he was the cause of her family's death. She knew that he was a murderer, a monster without compassion. A man who had caused hardship and pain for many others like herself. One with demon eyes.

From that day on, she'd hated him, had made it her goal to bring an end to the pain he inflicted upon others.

And now, now almost 50 years in the past, she had saved him. In a rare moment of compassion, a moment of weakness, a moment when she could feel him dying almost as clearly as if it were herself, she had saved him.

She had made a horrible, horrible mistake.

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end prologue 

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Part 1

Deep in the heart of Salem center, a quaint little town nestled in upstate New York, there sits a mansion. The locals know it as "the strange school that houses all those freaks". Those who live there know it as home, as a safe haven, a place where they can share, live, grow with those like them. The sign that guards the gate blocking the long driveway reads: 'The Xavier Institute: School for Higher Learning', but those who attend know that this is only a cover, a disguise in a world that would hate and persecute the mansion's occupants if it knew the truth. This is a place where the extraordinary occurs every day, where the spectacular is the usual, where the uncanny is the norm. Here, amazing things can happen.

It is here that futures are born.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

The bar was dingy and dark, the perfect place for under-the-table deals to be made unobserved, and naturally, there were plenty of minor criminals filling the place this Saturday night. Music blared loudly from a set of speakers in the ceiling, competing with the TVs scattered around and playing various sports games. In one corner there was a group of men sitting around a large table drinking bears and staring intently at a basketball game. One of the teams scored a point and the whole group jumped up, screaming for joy in a giant wave of human adrenaline. A few tables over a trio of girls were talking secretly, commenting conspiratorially on every male that walked by. They giggled at the over-enthusiastic sports fans.

The bar was set up in sections. There was the bar itself with its shiny silver stools, and there were the booths that lined the tinted-windowed walls. In the space between were free-standing tables where the sports fanatics and the trio of girls were. The tables were almost full, but many of the booths were still empty, reserved for dark characters who might be expected to grace the bar with their presence later that night. Each booth that was occupied contained only a few people, never more than four, but usually closer to three or two. And always, the customers sat in the shadows with shifty eyes that constantly swept over the people that filled the bar. It was clear that all were involved with something illegal. Some drugs. Some smuggling. Some were trying to move swag. And here was where they made their deals; the bar was their local crime hub, centered in the "bad part" of Salem Center.

Many of the stools at the bar counter itself were filled, but those there were very different in character from the criminals at the booths or the people hanging out at the tables. These were the regular drunks. The husbands who didn't want to go home to their wives at night. The man or woman who had just lost his or her job today and needed to loosen up. The hopeless and desperate who looked for direction and purpose in the bottom of a bottle. 

But there was one figure who didn't seem to fit. His long trench coat that he'd refused to take off when he'd come inside hid his shape from behind, and even from the front, his eyes were blocked by dark sunglasses. He sat hunched over a still full, chilled mug of beer, playing solitaire as if he were in no hurry. The face was worn, the skin very weathered and back-lit with a red glow that was reminiscent of a sunburn, but the features were strong and rather handsome overall. Perhaps if his hair had been longer, rather than cut short in a crew-cut as it was, he may have been considered quite gorgeous. But still, he was at least cute enough to grab the attention of the three girls at the table behind him, who had been looking for guys the whole night. He gave no indication that he noticed, though he must have heard them whispering. 

He seemed like he should have been young, face not yet marked with wrinkles, but there was something about him that said he wasn't an inexperienced child. He was dangerous. Even hunched over and concentrated on his card game that was certain.

And above all, there was a message written in every crease of his worn duster, every scar on his hands and face, every movement he made.

This was a man who had seen the darker alleyways of life. This was a man who had dwelled in the shadows for much of his existence.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Remy LeBeau was starting to get annoyed. He glanced at his watch again, noting that it was now 10 minutes past his appointment. That really wasn't too much of a delay, but he hadn't wanted to come to this meeting anyway. New Son sure knew how to pick the worst of times to contact old employees. But maybe it had been planned that way.

He was injured. He was still healing. And he had almost died. What better time to take advantage of somebody?

His brain was on auto-drive and he suddenly realized that he had won his solitaire game. There was a half-empty mug of beer sitting on the bar in front of him. It was his first glass. He hadn't wanted to drink too much so as to keep his judgement and instincts intact, but he'd needed something for his grating nerves. Public places were hard to be in now. Ever since his recent episode with Sinister, when he'd regained the full strength of his powers, his empathy had been stronger. It still wasn't anything too extensive, but he wasn't used to controlling it yet and his shields didn't block out enough of the emotions that surrounded him. He could feel everything around. The drunken stupors. The empty glee. The wary fear. It was like a pungent odor, and his mind wrinkled up in reaction to it. It reminded him of just how glad he was that he wasn't a full-out telepath, like the Professor or Jean.

So, of course, he was a little off-guard here. And it wasn't an accident that this meeting had been arranged in one of the more popular night-spots of the back-alleys of Salem. New Son knew what he was doing.

He glanced at his watch again. 15 minutes. He tried to be optimistic. At least he was doing something, rather than sitting back at the mansion being babied by the other X-Men. He was off active duty. And he was forced to visit Hank's torture chamber everyday for medical check-ups. They wouldn't even let him use the danger room for fear that his health might be 'unpredictable'.

They acted like they'd never seen a dead man come back to life before. Jeanie had done it numerous times, and they'd never had a problem with that.

It was getting out-right frustrating. And then they wondered why he had insomnia at night. There had always been a method to his madness. Days over-packed with activity, parties spanning into late night and early morning, disappearing for a little midnight adventure—he didn't do it just for fun. Well, he did do it for fun… but there was also another more practical reason. He was trying to tire himself to exhaustion, to get to the point where he could collapse into unconsciousness and fall down past the echoing nightmares in his mind. If you're numb with exhaustion you can't hear the screams in your dreams.

Or so the theory went. But the X-Men were forcing him to be a good little boy, just because he'd gotten a few boo-boos recently.

He wasn't a boy.

And he hated being good.

He realized that now he was simply staring at his watch, unconsciously counting off the seconds with the digital display. There was an eruption of giggles behind him and he remembered the three girls that he had felt staring at his back since the beginning of the night. They had provided a nice distraction, listening to them whisper about him loudly, as if he wouldn't be able to hear. He'd glanced back once and smiled and then turned away to listen to and feel their giggles. That was before he'd gotten preoccupied with the time. But now he remembered them.

There was an uncertain presence approaching him at his back. He felt it move through the kinetic field that surrounded him, knowing before she sat next to him that it was one of the girls. The stool to his left squeaked quietly and she eased her weight onto it. The giggles followed her from behind.

Ripping his eyes away from his watch, he turned his head to face her, raising his eyebrows in question behind the sunglasses. She was relatively pretty. Her hair was very straight and very blond and her features were delicate, but smothered in too much makeup. "Hey," she said, smiling warmly with dark red lips. Her voice was young and peppy.

She ordered a drink and he waited for her to turn back to him. "Hello, cherie," he smiled. He could feel her relax at his greeting and bristle at his accent. He turned to the bartender. "Drink 's on me." She smiled wider.

"Thanks. I'm Jen." Her hand came out for a handshake and he considered flattering her by bending to kiss it. But then he thought better. He was already leading her on more than was decent. She probably expected to leave here with him tonight, or to at least get his number or something. She had no way of knowing that there was already a significant other in his life. But there was nothing wrong with talking. He took her hand and shook it in his right hand. The movement hurt, and he tried not to wince visibly.

"Remy," he said.

She nodded. "So, what's up with the sunglasses, hon?"

"Got sensitive eyes," he smirked.

"Oh." She was staring down at his hand… at the scar… He turned away, looking down at his deck of cards.

She didn't comment on it. Too polite. "I've never seen you around here before, where ya from?" she asked finally, breaking the silence.

"I usually don' come here." He circled around the question. He felt her understand that he didn't want to give away too much information. She had to be used to that, sitting in a place like this, surrounded by shady characters constantly, all carrying their own secrets.

She shrugged. "Well, you should come by more often." She wasn't intimidated by him, or even enchanted by his mystery. She'd seen it all before. He noticed the tight clothes, the way she held her purse to her side, the tall, knee-high boots. He wondered if she had a weapon somewhere on her person.

He grinned charmingly. "Yeah, maybe I will." Or course he never would. Not by choice. The beer wasn't _that _good here. And the bar itself was rather run down, not very impressive compared to some of the other places he knew.

The door swung open behind the girl, and he saw a figure enter. At the same time he extended both his kinetic field and his empathic powers around the newcomer, running his own version of an identity check against what his eyes saw. Finally. He was here. He glanced at his watch. 20 minutes late. That was a message. New Son was telling him that he was still his servant, that he still waited according to his timetable.

"Sorry, chere. But I must be going now. Remy thanks you for the lovely company." He left a few bills on the bar, ignoring her slightly disappointed expression, bowed extravagantly and left. He walked quickly over to a booth, to meet the courier he'd been waiting for all this time.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

"Nice o' y' to come," Remy commented mildly as he slid into the booth across from Jacob Gavin Jr., known to the business as Courier. That business was delivering information, making Jacob a go between for various parties. Particularly for New Son and his various connections. Of course, most people never found out his real name, simply knew him as Courier. But Remy had his ways, his sources.

Courier nodded a greeting that completely ignored Remy's obvious annoyance. He was immaculate. A good quality pin-striped suit fit perfectly over his average-built frame, too fancy for a place like this, but suiting him so well that it didn't matter. His hair was parted down the middle, gelled slightly so that the bluish-black strands fell down into his eyes. It was a rougish hairstyle that he managed to make look perfectly planned and executed. He looked like a rich kid who wasn't afraid of standing out or making an impression, but who at the same time was used to being told what to do.

Remy tilted his head at the man across from him. He couldn't get a clear empathic reading, only a vague empty echo that gave him no insight into Courier's feelings. It made sense that he would have mental blocks. What good was a messenger who couldn't keep secrets from a mind-reader? Especially when that messenger worked with mutants.

"You won't mind if we get straight to business, I ate before I came," Jake inquired, leaning back casually in the cushioned seat as he gestured toward the bar.

"No problem," Remy nodded, sitting back in an equally comfortable position.

"Good. Of course, you know who sent me."

"Of course." No mention of the name, even if it was a cover name anyway. They both knew who they were talking about, no need to tell other possible eavesdroppers.

Jake nodded. "How are you feeling?" It seemed like a complete and total change of subject, but everything had a purpose. New Son wanted information on Remy's condition. He had to have known something about his injuries, how much, Remy didn't know, but until he found out, he would play it safe.

"Better dan I was two weeks ago." He grinned. "I'm alive, no?" He tried to watch Courier's reaction to that, to see if he took the last part figuratively, or if he really knew that Remy had almost died.

"Yes. Indeed." He knew. "And those nasty burns you got? They've all healed? Well, except for that scar on your hand. Peculiar shape it is." His eyebrows rose, asking an unvoiced question.

Remy ignored the implied question, as much because he had no explanation for the scar as because he didn't particularly want to talk about it. "Yeah, de burns are all gone. I feel great," he lied. The burns were gone, they had healed to the degree of a minor sunburn within a few days after his touch with death in the hospital. That much was true. As for feeling great. That was a bit of an exaggeration.

Jake nodded. He didn't believe him. "And your powers?"

He knew about the powers. New Son sure had sources. But did New Son know that he had lost the Omega abilities with his healing? He could still do the normal, 'charge a card and make it go boom' trick, but 'charge the world and make it go boom'? Not a chance. No one could explain it. Not even him. But his kinetic abilities were back to Alpha strength, even though the nanos that had always restrained his Omega abilities were gone.

He tried playing dumb. "M' powers? Well, I'm still a mutant, if dat's what you mean."

"You know exactly what I mean."

Remy smiled and placed his left hand on the table. The spot directly under it began to glow a faint pink. It lasted for a second before the short energy burst dissipated. "Yep, dey still dere." The smile became a smirk. It had to be clear to Jake now that he wasn't going to answer the question.

"Wow, aren't you talented," he commented sarcastically. "Should I remind you that you owe my employer your life?"

"Y' can if y' want." As if he couldn't forget it. That was the only reason he was sitting here talking to this man right now.

"I do." He tried to meet Remy's gaze but the sunglasses interfered. "But onto other matters… your health isn't the reason we are having this meaning."

Remy tried to look shocked. "No? And here I was, t'inking you really cared, Jake."

"I'm sorry to disillusion you, but my employer has a job for you." He pushed a strand of blue-black hair away from his eyes, it fell back in exactly the same position. Blue hair. It should have been enough to identify him as a mutant, but these days people were doing enough weird things to their bodies that it simply appeared to be some form of self-expression. No one would suspect that he was really a mutant shapeshifter.

"What kind o' job?" Remy leaned forward in his seat.

"Details will come." The voice was smooth, perfect.

"Dat's all I get?"

"Yep."

"Don' sound like I have much of a choice." He raised his eyebrows behind the glasses.

"You don't." Courier shrugged. "You do the job or you disappoint my employer. I suggest you do the job."

"I don' need your 'suggestions'. When do I find out more?"

"Soon," he said simply. And with that he slid out of the booth and stood, walking out of the bar without another word.

A moment later, Remy left himself, tired and ready to head home. The trio of girls at the table watched him go.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

It was almost midnight by the time Remy pulled up to the mansion on his motorcycle. The bike was a Harley, brand new too, and it purred like a wild cat beneath his body. He pulled into the mansion garage, hoping that the noise wouldn't wake anybody up, knowing that it probably wouldn't since the bedrooms were rather far from the garage, but being paranoid nonetheless.

He covered the bike with a tarp to protect the sleek paint, and walked into the mansion using the garage door, cradling his right arm the whole way. The vibration from the bike had irritated it, and he flexed the fingers and bent the elbow with the range of movement it still had as he entered the mansion. The injury was a result of a large shard of glass that had pierced his forearm near the elbow when he had blown Sinister's lab up a few weeks previous. A tendon had been severed, and it had healed badly, scarred and restricting his movement. He only had about 70% ability in his right arm now, the range of motion now much smaller. The effect was disastrous on his ability to throw cards charged with kinetic energy. He could still throw fine with his left arm, but when he tried to use his right one the card would either flip end over end harmlessly, or would be thrown clean and completely wide of the target. In a fight, either possibility could be fatal.

That said nothing of the effect on his thieving skills. He was still a very able professional, could still probably handle any job he could have before; he was that good. But part of being a thief was trusting yourself and knowing your abilities. You needed to know what situations you could handle and when you were pushing your limits too far, and right now he wasn't so sure what those limits were. Even if he had wanted to, he probably wouldn't take a serious thieving job for that reason alone. He hoped that wasn't what New Son wanted him for. 

He was on the stairs now, making his way quietly up them, avoiding the creaky spots he had memorized since his first trip up them. His movements were graceful, smooth, and completely and utterly silent. He had been trained as a thief by the New Orleans Thieves Guild since he was a boy, and the lessons he had learned had been ingrained in his mind. Clinging to the shadows was a natural reaction, blending with crowds and moving like a ghost, instinct.

The door to his room was closed, as he had left it. He reached out and turned the brass knob, pushing through and going inside, automatically alert, just in case. With all that had happened lately, his nerves had been even more tightly wound than usual. Before he knew it he would end up like Scott. What a horrible thought.

He closed the door and walked over to the bed, having satisfied his caution. By the time he reached the soft mattress, he was stripped down to his boxers. He smirked at the cute little ducks that covered them, happily squeaking out the word 'quack' on the white fabric. Remy LeBeau, thief, scoundrel, X-Man, and lover of cute boxers. Wouldn't want that getting out; it couldn't be healthy for his reputation.

He was sitting down, not quite ready to attempt sleeping. There were too many thoughts running through his scrambled brain. New Son was knocking at his door again, asking his help in more illegal activities. And Remy had to listen, because as much as he pretended not to care, his honor mattered. New Son had saved his life at a time when he had nobody else to turn too. He owed him. And for now, he would keep doing the favors, until the price got too high.

He had to remember that life was just a game. A gamble to which all were addicted. Otherwise the stress would just be oppressive.

If only the game had some discernable rules. He should be dead. In fact, he _had_ died. He had stopped breathing, his heart stopped beating. Rogue had kissed him, but despite her uncontrolled mutant ability to absorb a person's memories, abilities, and personalities by touch, she had felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. And then something had happened and he was living and breathing and recovering at an unbelievable pace. By the next day the burns had faded to mere first-degree sunburn. Even Wheatey's couldn't explain that.

There were only two ways such an event could happen. One was that he had special healing abilities. The other was that somebody had healed him.

And he _knew_ he'd never had a healing factor like Wolverine's to brag about.

The other possibility scared him though. Because it made him think Sinister. He touched his right hand, knowing what was there, left scarred on his skin, and hating it. He couldn't help but theorize that Sinister was responsible for all this somehow.

But the nanos were gone. They had harmlessly self-destructed when he had destroyed Sinister's lab, which had held the equipment controlling them. He remembered holding the power in his hands, charging the room where he and the other X-Men were being held, with kinetic energies fueled by his newly recovered Omega abilities. He remembered releasing them, staring into Sinister's eyes as the madman realized what he was about to do. He remembered the world disappearing around him. He'd been told that he had been successful in managing to direct the impact away from the X-Men, only a few of them walking away with minor burns. And the explosion had taken out the force fields surrounding their glass cages, and much of the glass itself too. But there was a lot of commotion, and when the smoke had cleared, Sinister was gone.

Not dead. Gone. It was never that easy.

He ran his hand through his hair—or lack of. The X-Men had taken him directly from Sinister's destroyed lab back to the mansion, but when Hank and Cecilia, the resident doctors, had seen his injuries, they had rushed him to the hospital. The hospital had shaved his head to make it easier to treat his wounds, and most of his hair had been singed anyway. It was almost two weeks since he'd been released and all that had grown was a one-inch fuzz. His hair usually grew pretty fast, he hoped it would this time. As of now, he'd officially decided it looked horrible.

Looking down suddenly, and raising his right hand in the dark, he stared at it, outlined in an eerie, pale halo from the moonlight shining through the opposite window. He focused on the scar. Ugly and clear. Traced on the back of his hand. A perfect diamond etched in red, centered so that it lined up with the knuckle of his middle finger exactly. Looking like a diamond etched in blood.

He turned away suddenly, disgusted, and rolled over in the bed, hoping for sleep and hoping that the nightmares wouldn't come.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Sleep brought restless dreams, turning, churning, dizzying, swirling. Terrifying. Green mist surrounded an empty, dark scene, absent of anything, of touch, smell, sight, feeling. There was a sense of loneliness, an absence, an unnatural fear bred by the vertex of nothingness. He spun uncoordinated within it, drifting on an ever-changing axis, images drawing faded shapes through the opaque green shadows that permeated everything and nothing. But slowly, the suppressing green mist relented, parting to let in brief sensory glimpses of worlds he did not know. Or want to know.

There were the sounds of war. Shouts, screams, shrieks. Battle cries mixed with the electric explosions of weaponry. Yelps of agony mixed with sobs of anguish. There were people, mutants and humans, united in their hatred, their violence, their murders, killing each other with zealous determination. But it was distant, unreal. Not dreamlike unreal, but unreal as in a feeling that this was something that had taken place long ago in a place far away. The type of feeling you got watching a documentary of World War II on TV. And there was something attached to it, an intuition, a feeling that the images had something to do with New Son, and something to do with himself.

The green mist filled in again, and there was silence, full and complete, until it parted again to show a face. A man, old, wrinkled with age, but still strong somehow, still sharp. Red eyes that pierced through minds, black pupils that were dull with pain and past tragedy. Long white hair, tied neatly in a ponytail, held by a long piece of leather tinted a dark reddish brown and wrapped tightly around it. Angled features thinned by years of hardship, tight lips stretched and hardened by reality. A face without any impossible fantasies to keep it aglow, without any illusions or hopes. The face of a hardened killer, a murderer. The face of a future Remy. There was the sound of a quiet whisper, riding on the swirls of the mist, giving a nametag to the image that he saw.

The Witness.

And then Remy awoke with a sharp intake of breath.

He couldn't sleep the rest of the night.

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end Part 1 

   [1]: mailto:galaxia_alpha@hotmail.com



	2. Part 2

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Part 2

Morning came. It was a relief when it did.

Remy pushed himself up in bed, squinting against the light that streamed in through the curtained window. Sitting, and bending to hold his head in his hands, he took a moment to clear his mind, he mentally prepared himself for another day at the X-Mansion. It took him a few moments of laziness before he felt ready to start the day's events, and then he stood. The room spun for a moment as he got up too fast, before it stabilized. Glancing at the clock as he did so, he crossed to the dresser to grab his robe and venture to the community shower for the men of the X-Men. He winced when he saw the time. Seven in the morning. He was insane to be up this early, especially on a weekend.

The shower helped him relax slightly, and by the time he came out he was in a halfway decent mood. Granted, he still wasn't smiles and sunshine, but some of the moodiness was slipping away. His muscles were sore, more from not being used than from being overused, and he reached up to stretch them. 

His dressing was done rather mechanically, he trying not to remember the dreams.

Trying not to remember the last time he had had dreams like that, with that kind of eerie organization and warning, that ominous presence. Trying not to remember that last time it had come true. Then it had been with Sinister and the nanos he had put in the X-Men's bodies to play around with their genetic codes.

But now? There were no metaphors this time, no symbolism like there had been in the past. Only glimpses. Only images. And two words.

The Witness.

Remy shook his head to clear his mind, cursing quietly at the dizziness the movement brought his unrested body, and put the thoughts away. Sometimes if he just put things in the back of his mind, just let them sit there and be mulled over by his subconscious, he could have some insight into them. He had to hope that it would work out like that this time.

Maybe it was just nerves. He had been through a lot lately.

He was dressed by now, and he took a handful of cards off the dresser where they sat, sticking them in his pockets. He didn't bother looking in the mirror. There was no point. He knew what he would see. Red irises on the black of his eyes. Angular, rugged features, now worn. The skin with a sickly glow and a strange tightness from the burns, still a much less consequence of his injuries than should be possible. The bristle left from not shaving for a day. Hair that was too short which he refused to brush for effect.

He'd seen it before. He had no need to see it again. That almost brought a chuckle. He knew he was in a bad mood when he didn't even want to look in a mirror and arrogantly compliment his reflection.

Walking out the door, he forced himself to shrug off his preoccupations, his worries, his dark manner. He'd get old too quickly staying with that mentality. It wasn't worth it sometimes. Sometimes it was much better to ignore life, to avenge it's curses by simply being unwilling to take it seriously.

Sometimes, when he really tried, he could still make himself believe that life was only a game, and he only a player.

He closed the door behind him as he left his room and wandered rather uneventfully down the stairs to the main floor. Stomach grumbling, he aimed for the kitchen.

There was nobody inside when he entered. It was still too early for most of the X-Men to be about, and the kitchen didn't tend to get busy until about 8:30 or 9 o'clock. Nobody around. Nobody to yell at him if he had a little fun… He glanced about conspiratorially, checking again to see if the cost was clear, and then his lips formed into a rather evil smirk. Within seconds there was a frying pan, oil, and the basic essentials for pancake batter piled up in his arms… plus a few extra spices. It didn't take long to mix everything together, and to season it—Cajun style.

He added some oil to the frying pan, poured several circles of batter in, and never took a step near the stove. Instead he stood over the table, holding the pan up in the air in his good hand, eyes narrowed. It was actually very hard to do—to use his kinetic power to add just enough energy to the pan to cook the pancakes inside. He'd done this as an exercise when he was only a pup, just learning to use his powers. Then the results had often been less than appetizing. 

Carefully, he shifted his focus on the kinetic field around him to center on the pan, blocking out all else so that he could monitor his progress. He could feel the molecules of batter speeding up, resulting in a rise in temperature as he converted the potential energy of the pan he was holding into kinetic. There was a potholder between his hand and the pan—just in case—and he had to work extra hard to make his power work through the barrier. Normally, with his present level of power, he needed to touch something to charge it, but he was capable of charging through certain thin barriers, like gloves, without actually charging the gloves.

The pancake batter was starting to bubble and sizzle, cooking to the right consistency. He stopped feeding it kinetic energy, but instead, focussed on changing some of the kinetic energy back to potential. It as hard for him, not as natural as the reverse process, since his powers weren't really geared to work that way, but he could do it, not on a large scale, but for something like this.

His kinetic field was still drawn around the pan, constricted there for maximum sensing ability, blocking out most of the rest of the room from his spatial sense, but allowing him to feel that the kinetic energy of the pancakes was now at a moderate level. He took a spatula and flipped them onto a nearby plate, tasting one after he did. Warm, fluffy, spicy. Perfect.

He started the process all over again, ignoring the slight fatigue he felt from the concentration he was exerting and the controlled use of his powers. Just like anything else, his powers needed to be exercised, and he hadn't been using them too much in the last few weeks after he'd blown up Sinister's lab. He needed this. And if he felt fatigued, it only meant he was getting a good work out.

The batter was sizzling again, slow bubbles rising to the surface. He flipped the pancakes with a spatula and let them cook some more. The heat rose from the pan and hit his face, irritating his still-tender skin slightly. His control was so careful, so exact, even the smallest distraction could mean its loss.

"Remy? What are ya doin'?" The Southern drawl rang out from the kitchen's entrance.

He jumped at the unexpected sound, not having felt her approach because of his focus. The tenuous balance of his powers was lost, and the flow of kinetic energy turned into a surprised burst that overran the pan's capacity. He felt what was going to happen a moment before it did, and threw the pan away from him and towards the window with all his strength. It flew away at a high speed and blew up right before it hit the pane.

If the explosion didn't wake the rest of the X-Men up, the shattering of glass and the crumbling of sheet rock did. A big cloud of smoke filled what was once a wall of the room. Slowly, Remy turned to look at the source of his distraction, and the reason he had just blown a hole in the X-Mansion.

Rogue stood staring quietly at the cloud of smoke, green eyes wide. Her hair was up in a messy pony tale and she was dressed in sweat pants and an old ratty t-shirt with the name of a school and picture of a mascot printed across its front. He wondered distantly if that had been her high school. After a moment she turned to face him, expression still drawn in disbelief.

"Rogue?" he asked carefully.

"Yeah?" she said slowly.

He looked back at the hole that was slowly taking shape as the smoke settled. The window was gone, as was some of the surrounding wall. The cold air from outside was starting to fill the room and he almost shivered. "Dis ain't good, is it?"

"No Remy, it's not."

He nodded distantly, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this one.

"Remy?"

"Yah, chere?"

"It was nice knowin' ya, sugah, 'cause Scott is gonna kill ya." Her tone wasn't joking.

He glanced at her briefly, thinking. He looked back at the hole, and then suddenly found an idea. Granted, it was more to lighten the situation than to really solve the problem, but it was something nonetheless. He ran over to the cabinet where they kept the extra tablecloths and found some tape in a draw. Making his way over to the big, gaping, empty space in the wall, and this time shivering as he approached it, he taped the tablecloth over it. The opening started at his waist and extended maybe a meter up, being maybe a meter and a half wide. He stepped back to look at his handwork, bumping into the warped, burnt remnants of the frying pan as he did. Kicking the remains of the pan, he watched it crumble into a course pile of ashes under the contact. There was no sign of the pancakes that had been in it. All that for nothing.

"Remy?" Rogue said tentatively.

"Yah?" He took a few steps back, staring at the wall with a big white tablecloth hanging on it and blowing slightly from the breeze outside. At least it matched the color of the room.

"Somehow, Ah don't think that's gonna help much."

He glanced at her. She took her eyes away from the tablecloth and met his gaze, raising her eyebrows.

"Non chere, but it may jus' give m' some extra time t' run." He turned to face her and began moving her direction, stepping more quickly as he approached. He was running by the time he made it past her and out of the kitchen entrance.

"Buh-bye, mah cherie!" he threw over his shoulder. Behind him he heard her finally crack and erupt into an uncontrolled burst of laughter.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

It was less than a half an hour later when Remy heard Jean psychically scream his name, it was a random, not very focused yell, as if she hadn't exactly pinpointed his location. He winced, but kept his mental shields up at a maximum. He hadn't realized how quiet it had been with her and Scott in Alaska. Well, if you could call being attacked by Sinister quiet. But at least he hadn't had Jean in his head and Scott on his back.

*REMY LEBEAU! If you value your life you _will_ come back right now!* She yelled in his head, and this time the words were focused directly on his mind. There was a slight hesitation as he thought it registered in her brain where he was, and then, in a secretive whisper that he knew she was blocking Scott from hearing through his psychic rampart with her: *Scott is livid about the wall already, get over here before he decides to slit your little Cajun neck!*

He gave her the mental equivalent of a raspberry.

She gave him the mental equivalent of slamming the door, and then the short exchange was over. He knew she knew where he was. He wondered if she would tell Scott so he could come and drag him back to the mansion.

Maybe Scott wouldn't believe her even if she did tell him.

The tunnels were dark and damp and he wrapped his trenchcoat tightly around his body. The walls glistened, reflecting the red light of his glowing eyes. He glanced warily around him, moving quickly, not wasting time staring at the various rodents that chattered across the ground. He remembered a similar journey many years ago, when he was younger, desperate, terrified, his heart had been beating rapid fire through his chest and his nerves had been so tightly wound that even the squeaking of a mouse had made him jump. He had known something bad was about to happen, if not exactly what.

His steps were silent now, and he moved with the fluid motion of a thief. That was what he had always been. There was a time when he had though he couldn't be both a thief and an X-Man, that they were polar opposites—one helped people, one hurt people. He would always be a scoundrel, a brigand at heart, but there was also something else. As hard as he found it to believe, he wanted to help people, to change things, maybe not to make the world the idealist dream of Xavier, but to do something worthwhile to improve it. He would always be both. Just not at the same time. In the past he had been just a thief. But now he was something else.

He stopped walking, having arrived where he had intended to go. He really wasn't sure what had brought him here, but he had felt the need to come. Maybe the destruction he'd just brought to the X-Mansion had actually done some good after all. He'd done something bad, made a mistake, and for once he wasn't afraid that he would be kicked off the team for it. He knew that he wouldn't be disowned for a missing wall. There were still the X-Men that disliked him, the ones that avoided him, the ones that wished he weren't around. But he had been willing to give his life for them. And knowing that had changed something for him.

He felt like he was one of the X-Men. And now it was time to put what he had been behind him.

The Morlock tunnels were eerily quiet, and he thought he could feel the empathic echo from the mass of pain and sorrow that had befallen this place years ago. He closed his eyes, let it come. Felt the tears, the blood, the screams, in bright colorful bursts of agony. He saw the dying, relived it in his mind. Saw himself trying to stop the massacre, failing, falling, grabbing one tiny child to try and do something to make it all better. Felt her bones protruding against his chest as he carried her. Heard her quiet crying, muffled by the blanket of her shock. He saw himself tell her he was sorry as he left her somewhere safe, with a few refugees. He saw himself crying. Felt the phantom tears slide down his cheeks now. 

He took it all, sucked in all the empathic signatures left resonating from the violent deaths that had taken place here. Took every single ghostly death-cry, every faded memory, every echoing personality that his empathy could find, and grabbed them up with his mind. Felt them almost overwhelm his weak, untrained abilities. And then… he let it all go. He let every single ghost die. He let the screams fade into nothing. He finally told himself that it was over… and he finally believed it.

Opening his eyes, he saw the tunnels again. The guilt and regret wasn't gone, and in a way he was glad that it wasn't. He'd come to depend on it to stop him from ever doing such a thing again. But the self-hate was gone. The fear that maybe he was still the man that had helped make the Morlock Massacre possible finally subdued. The events that took place here would always be a part of his past, but the present, the future—they were free to form their own course.

He was trembling. Several slow breaths of rotten air found their way in and out of his lungs. His eyes overlooked the cavern in the tunnels before him, watched the ghosts of his memory slowly fade, and he noticed something he had never seen before. Spray painted in faded red on one of the walls was a lopsided diamond, probably done by one of the Marauders as a special assignment from Sinister. His stomach twisted as he wondered whether it was really paint or blood.

His hand rose shakily. He looked down. Stared at the diamond-like scar there. Stared back at the wall. He would never forget. Turning away suddenly, he began the careful journey back to the mansion.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

When Remy came up from the tunnels it was midday. He had half expected to see Marrow waiting for him the whole way back, her gleaming white bones positioned in her hands and ready for a death strike. He almost hoped she would be, that she would finally face him, look into his eyes and show him what she was feeling, even if it was hate. That was better than her avoidance of him, her unwillingness to acknowledge him in anyway, even to show how much she disliked him. 

There weren't many people whose opinions he cared much about. He'd spent his youngest years growing up on the streets alone, not having anybody to care about him. The result was a very acute sense of independence. But still, there were always the few that mattered. Something in him had never allowed him to be completely and totally alone. Maybe he was simply human. Maybe he was simply a mutant empath. Maybe he was simply both.

Marrow wasn't waiting for him when he entered the mansion. But somebody else was. Storm stood, tall and proud, radiating a kind of translucent beauty that hung around her long white hair and deep cocoa eyes in a chocolate face. He met her when he came up to the main level in the lift; she was waiting there for him and smiled a welcome, though a bit uncertain.

"Jean told me I would find you here if I waited a few minutes."

He walked out of the elevator doors and listened to them swish closed behind him. His mind tried to feel out Ororo's emotions against his will, to see how much she knew of where he'd been. All he found was uncertainty and curiosity, winning himself a sense of guilt for invading her privacy in the process.

"Well, Stormy, y' found me."

She nodded in agreement, smiling slightly at his use of his pet name for her. "She didn't say where you were." There was question in her eyes, but no pressure. She wouldn't force an explanation out of him.

He tilted his head slightly, thinking of what his answer should be. He finally decided. "Burying the past, 'Roro."

She waited a moment for more elaboration and when it didn't come she simply nodded. Ororo Monroe was perhaps his closest friend, having been the first X-Man he had met, having been the reason he came to the X-Men. There had never been a time when she hadn't been there for him, and he loved her for that. She also knew how to leave him the space he needed. Being a private person herself, and a former thief to boot, there was a certain common ground and understanding of each other that they shared. He couldn't put it into words exactly, but it was invaluable to him.

They were still standing outside the elevator doors, and Remy was about to walk on and assume the conversation was over when Storm spoke again. "Scott wants to see you. He is quite mad." She tried to hold a stern expression on her face but he saw through it from years of experience.

"I'll bet. How's he enjoyin' his new view o' de outdoors?" Remy gave her a charming grin, remembering the morning's events. Looking back on it, the situation was quite funny.

The smile broke through slightly on her features. "Not very much. I suggest you see him as soon as possible."

He nodded. "Well, in dat case, I'll take m' time." He gave her a roguish wink and turned to go up the stairs to his room. He was halfway there when he heard her voice again.

"Oh, and Remy?" she said.

He smiled where he was, knowing from the tone of her voice what was coming next. "Yes, cherie?"

"My name is not Stormy."

He chuckled and continued his walk to his room.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

Though his room looked undisturbed when he entered it, the note on his dresser told him otherwise. He saw it right away, picking out the unexpected white paper from the other normal and mundane objects that filled his living space. It wasn't a whole sheet of paper, but a small square written on with a black marker. He stared at the words thinking: "Meet me 9:30 at the bar, details will come."

It was obvious that the note was from Courier, or another of New Son's messengers, adding the context of recent events. How whoever-it-was had gotten into his room and through mansion defenses undetected, he didn't know, but he couldn't say he was surprised. People like New Son had their ways. It was best not to underestimate them.

He took the paper, crumbled it in his hand, noticing that it was still warm, as if it had been held recently. Fishing into his dresser draw, he pulled out the lighter he kept in case he decided to go back to smoking one day, and lighting the small flame, ignited the crumbled sheet. The paper burned with the smell of chemicals, and he held it as long as he could without being burnt himself, before he blew out the fire and shook the disintegrating material vigorously in the air. When he was done it was a charred black remnant of its former self, the words indistinguishable. He threw it in the trashcan in the corner, next to his dresser, wiping his hands on his pants as he turned away, leaving a puddle of ashes on the floor.

The door was his destination, the plan being to go face Scott now and get it over with so he could be done before he had to sneak out of the mansion at night. As far as the meeting went with New Son's representative, he didn't have much choice but to go. He was stuck, and his refusal wouldn't be met kindly.

He walked passed the dresser. Reached out for the doorknob. He never touched the brass metal.

The world flashed out around him and he was in a different place, somewhere, somewhen, far away…

__

He is running away from something. Trying to find some hope, some form of salvation. The streets are unfamiliar, dark, empty, moaning wails emanating from forbidden alleyways, unidentified screeches and squeaks wafting up with the scent from the sewers underground.

There are tears sliding down his round cheeks, dripping off in mud-streaked drops that soak his ragged clothes. But he can't stop to wipe them, can't rest to end the gasping, frantic breaths he vigorously takes. He has to get away.

Long jet-black strands of hair fly into his eyes, plastered to his forehead with sweat. He feels sick, a heaviness filling his stomach and churning up within it, tightening the choking pressure in his throat. He doesn't look back, doesn't check to see if the ragged man with the blue hair is still following him. He can't, for fear that he will loose his balance and fall to the ground, fall into the man's arms that he is sure are following close behind.

His mind is in tatters, endlessly repeating a programmed phrase that rises in slow rhythm with the bile in his throat, "Please don't fall. Please don't fall. Please don't fall."

He trips. He falls.

It is an empty beer bottle that seems to spell his doom, and he sees it the moment before his foot hits it. But it is too late to avoid. He tries anyway. His dodging effort pulls his weight even more off-balance, and he flies forward, arms tangled up in front, legs stuck out behind. He hits the ground, taking the force with his whole body. Rolling with it, arms crossed about his chest, he screams as a shard of stray glass suddenly jams into the back of his right hand. He rolls over one more time, onto his back, cradling the injury, feeling the now silent yell etched in a grimace on his face. Blood is everywhere, pouring out onto his tattered clothes, pooling on the concrete around him. He lays there, crying, exhausted, unable to move. Turning his head to the side, he tries to see if the man is coming to take him now, but there is nobody as his eyes search. The red stain growing on the ground comes into view, and he remembers the blood pouring onto the rug, under the bodies of his dead parents. The color is the same. He remembers, and his tattered mind falls into recollection, unable to escape the death, the pain, and the sorrow.

He screams.

When the sound is done he is lying on the floor of his room, shaking violently.

¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨ ¨

She sat in the corner of the mind she shared, arms wrapped around herself, her emotions wound up and tired. That was the only fatigue she felt these days, hard to have anything else without your own body.

The memories hadn't died, but remained as shadows playing in her intangible brain. They had been hard to share, but necessary. She had a job to do, a world to save. She'd already been foolish, let her emotions dictate her actions, had shown some possibly disastrous mercy, in favor of finding another way.

But that didn't mean that desperate measures weren't still necessary, that she should be nice to her host, forget what he had done—would do, ignore what he would become. He deserved everything she gave him and more, and if it helped him see, helped him not play the part he would in the future, then it was all worth it. And if her plans didn't work? She was still in control, she could always end it. His life wasn't priceless. By far.

The players were coming together, and she knew who they were, even if she didn't know what the exact turn of events would be. She had control of the key. 

The rest would come.


	3. Part 3

Part 3 ****

Part 3

He was walking down the stairs when he first heard Scott yell his name. Wincing against the headache rattling his skull, he tried to ignore the shouts.

"Gambit! Gambit? Do you hear me?"

He looked down at Scott's annoyed expression waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase. The leader of the X-Men stood in full uniform, yellow spandex and all, ruby quarts visor masking the frustrated expression that was no doubt present in the eyes. "Yeah, Scott. I hear ya," Remy managed to mumble.

"We need to talk. Let's take a walk." He was about to turn away, but something made Scott pause and stare at him for a moment, tilting his head. Some of the hardness left the expression. "Remy, are you okay?"

Remy was standing in front of Scott now, looking into the other's face. He glanced away for a moment, trying to clear his head, to tie the indifferent mask on tighter. "I'm fine. Jus' a bad day is all."

Scott nodded and then turned sharply. "Follow me." The anger was back, concern abandoned. He walked out of the room and Remy came obediently behind, too tired and worn to argue.

The dream was still lingering in his mind, and the more he tried to push it away, the more it came back on him, forcing him to remember the vivid reality of it, the solid yet intangible quality that made it seem so much like a memory. A memory. Was that what it was? A repressed memory from his childhood that had just randomly decided to come back on him in a flashback? But what had triggered it? It had been so… real.

They were in the hall now, and Remy tried to force his mind out of its trauma-induced haze. He blinked a few times and took a deep breath, sticking his hands in his pockets to distract himself. Instead of trying to forget about the dream, about running helplessly through dark alleys in search of a help he couldn't find, he forced his brain to occupy itself with other things. Like the meeting he had later that night. Or the verbal thrashing he was about to get from Scott.

Scott. He realized that they had stopped in front of a room, one of the mansion's many studies, and that Cyclops was opening the door. Gesturing with his head, he indicated that Remy should enter first. Remy walked in, noting the sharp wood odor of the room. All the furnishings were new, and all were pine from the looks of it. There wasn't too much in the way of furniture—a desk, some chairs, a couch and a few empty bookcases. None of the items looked overly elegant or expensive either, nothing that his trained thief eyes would pay much attention to. Apparently Xavier's accounts weren't endless. The mansion was slowly getting refurbished after Bastion's attack on it, but the X-Men were trying to keep some semblance of a budget.

There was the sound of the door closing and Scott walked past Remy to sit behind the big desk. He nodded toward one of the chairs on the other side of it. "Would you like to take a seat?"

"Non. I would like to get dis over wit'." He walked over to a wall next to the desk and leaned back against it. The fabric of his duster made a chaffing noise as it rubbed on the spackled off-white paint.

"That makes two of us." Scott leaned back in the chair, resting his arms on the armrests and steepling his fingers in front of his face. He observed Remy for a moment, seeming to evaluate the situation.

Remy was struck by how much Scott reminded him of Xavier in that instant. If only the Professor could be there to see how much his protégé had come to be like him, instead of locked away in some government containment center for his part in Onslaught.

"First I want to know where you were this morning. After you put a hole in the kitchen, that is."

Remy crossed his arms over his chest casually. "I was out."

"That's it?" Scott's voice rose in disbelief. Or maybe it was exasperation.

"Yep."

"You are an X-Man, and as leader of the X-Men…" he paused and took a breath, as if he knew that what would come next could be consequential, "…I demand to know where you were."

Remy's brow dropped over his flaming red eyes. "Y' demand?" he challenged.

"Yes. You have a habit of being unaccounted for, and I can't depend on you as a member of this team if that doesn't change. Jean called for you telepathically and you ignored her. I want to know where you were." Scott was leaning forward on the desk now, ruby quarts visor staring at Remy.

"I had somet'ing important t' do. If it had been an emergency, I woulda been here. Ot'erwise, dat's de best I can do."

"Well, that's not good enough." He said it with a straight expression, his voice steady.

Red eyes shot to glare at the man across the desk. "Why don' you ask your wife?" he said in an icy tone, even though he already knew that Scott had tried.

"I did. She told me to ask you. Now, I want an answer." The tone was cold, and Remy could feel the waves of anger and frustration that accompanied it. Usually Scott was pretty good at not leaking emotions and triggering Remy's empathy. It came from living with a telepath. But now some of it was coming through. He wondered if that was on purpose.

Remy pushed off of the wall and took a few steps toward the desk. "Look Scott, you wanna be a good leader an' keep control o' your team? I understand dat. But I ain't gonna kiss your feet an' ask your forgiveness." He stepped up to the desk and leaned on it, his hands pressed firmly on the wood top. "I don' take orders less I want to, an' in dis case I say no. I told you I was doin' somet'ing important, an' dat's gonna have to be enough. I ain't been on a mission since I been injured. Y' won't even allow me t' practice in de danger room. What does it matter if I'm gone a few hours?"

They were at even eye level now, red irises to red quartz. "It matters. You are a member of this team and you follow the same rules as everybody else."

"I don' see you keepin' anyone else out o' training sessions. I don' see you treatin' dem like chil'ren."

The strong jaw worked. "You want to be treated like an adult? Act like one. You're injured. That's why you aren't allowed to train in the danger room. You know that."

Remy had to restrain the impulse to roll his eyes. "Accordin' t' Hank, I made a remarkable recovery."

"And according to Hank, that recovery is also unexplainable and should be impossible."

Remy scoffed and pushed back off the desk until he was upright again. "Isn't dat what bein' a mutant is all about?"

Scott leaned back. Remy watched him carefully, noting the hostility still present in the body language that he had learned to read so well. 

The visor tilted slightly and the subject changed. "Are you willing to tell me how you managed to create a new opening in the side of the mansion then?"

"Sure."

"Well _that's_ a relief."

Remy smirked slightly adding a mischievous glint to his expression. "But are y' sure you want t' know?"

Scott paused for only a fraction of a second. "Yes. Go on."

"I was makin' pancakes." He waited for the confusion to cross Scott's face. It could be so much fun tormenting a straight and narrow guy like Cyclops.

"You were making pancakes." Scott repeated the words slowly and carefully, as if he were making sure he had heard them right.

Remy nodded.

Scott shook his head. "Gambit, last time I checked, the recipe for pancakes didn't entail knocking out a wall."

Remy smirked. "I bet last time you checked you couldn' charge objects wit' kinetic energy eit'er."

"No." His tone sounded strained. "Why don't you tell me exactly what happened."

Remy shrugged nonchalantly. "I was doin' a training activity I used t' use as a pup. It involves controlling m' power t' a degree where I c'n manipulate molecules an' create a temperature change exact enough t' cook a pancake."

"Remy, you can't control temperature."

"Non, but I c'n control kinetic energy, an' temperature is jus' de average kinetic energy o' an object. Granted, it's not de most natural use o' my powers, but it can be done. It jus' requires a lot o' concentration."

Scott sighed heavily. "Alright. So, what went wrong?"

"I got distracted an' lost m' focus. De pan got overcharged an' I had t' get rid o' it before it exploded. I tried t' throw it out de window but I guess it didn' quite make it dere."

"You guess?" he said in pained tones.

"Look, I'll pay f'r de wall."

"You're right. You will. And you will also be punished for your disappearance too." Scott pushed himself up so that he was standing in front of the chair. "I want 24 hours of training time logged this week, 10 of which should be in the Danger Room"

Remy's eyebrows rose. "De Danger Room?"

Scott continued. "And after each Danger Room session I want you to go to Hank for a check up."

Remy's expression fell. He knew there had to be a catch. He tried to mask his disappointment the best he could. It was always better to show less. He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Fine."

"Good. Then that's all." And with that Scott walked out from behind the desk and left the room. 

Remy had to admit, it could have gone worse.

*******

Remy wasn't sure if he should expect to find anybody in the living room when he entered. There hadn't been any training sessions scheduled for the day, and with the free time the X-Men may have decided to take a trip to Salem for the day. The other option was that they would all be lazing around together around the TV.

But what he did find was neither senerio. Rogue was sitting in one corner of the couch, alone, and staring at the news flashing across the television in front of her. She didn't seem to notice him standing in the room a few feet behind her. Gently, he reached out with his mind to feel her mood. She seemed somewhat passive and calm, if not a little serious.

"Ya know, I can feel it when ya do that. Ah'm not sure how. Maybe it has ta do with that shadow o' ya that ah still carry around with me in mah mind." She didn't turn to face him.

He pulled the feeling hand of his empathy back. He hadn't known she could sense him sensing her.

"It's okay, sugah. It's kinda comfortin' actually. Like a gentle caress. 'Sides, ah ain't got nothin' ta hide."

He couldn't tell if she was berating him or if she hadn't meant anything by the comment.

So he gave her an equally ambiguous reply. "'Course not, cherie," and walked around the couch to sit next to her, not too close, but close enough that she would know he was willing to get closer. He stretched out so that his arms were spread out along the couch on either side of him. His right arm screamed out in pain, reminding him of his injury, and he pulled it back down into his lap, hiding his wince as best he could. He had been downplaying the degree of pain he was in quite a bit, not wanting the X-Men to realize how hurt he was and overreact like they usually did.

His left arm was still outstretched, offering a snuggle, and after a few moments Rogue took the invitation and leaned up against him, pressing her face into his shirt. It was comforting to feel her beside him and somehow it helped everything to seem a little better. Some of the tension slipped out of his mind and body and he almost relaxed.

She let out a little sigh and then, "Psylocke and Angel are thinking of leaving tonight."

He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, running his left hand through her auburn hair with the white stripe down the top. He was careful not to touch her skin, knowing that to do so would mean her absorbing his powers, his memory, and even his personality for a time. "Are dey? Why so early?"

"Hank gave Warren the okay ta go. He said that his wings were healed enough that it was safe to leave the mansion. He still ain't allowed ta fly, they were hurt pretty bad, but he just needs time ta relax. And besides that, he wants to concentrate on his company. He's been away from it for a while. And Betsy wants to concentrate on them. A bit of a difference in priorities if ya ask me, but maybe it works for them."

Remy didn't say anything. Warren and him hadn't talked much since he'd gotten out of the hospital, even though both of them had spent a lot of time in the medlab together. When Sinister had "turned off" their powers with his nano probes, Warren's wings had started to die, suffering from severe gangrene. Hank was thinking of amputating before the nanos were destroyed. After they all had their powers back, the damage in the Angel's wings hadn't gotten any worse, but was still significant. The appendages were basically regenerating themselves, and no one knew to what degree they would be able to heal on their own. Last time Warren had had them amputated, they hadn't been able to grow back at all.

It was hard not to feel guilty for the nanos and all the trouble they had caused. There were parts of the story the X-Men didn't know, parts that he kept in that overflowing chest of secrets in his mind. Like the premonitions he had had before Sinister had captured them and put them in his lab. Or the flashbacks he had had while being held captive. Or that he was the one who had spread the nanos to the other X-Men. Sinister had told him that part while the rest were unconscious on the floor of his base in upstate New York. The nanos had been crawling all over Rogue when he had saved her from Sinister's stronghold and they had immediately crawled onto him, spreading to every person he touched and to every person they touched and so on. Rogue couldn't have physical contact with anyone, so once she took a shower and got rid of all of the nanos crawling over her skin she was no longer able to spread it. That left Remy as the primary carrier. He knew that it could have been anyone, anyone who had had any contact with her when she was rescued, that maybe even Hank had been contaminated by her when he was treating her immediately afterwards at the mansion, but that didn't completely prevent Remy from blaming himself. He was notorious for angsting, no matter how much he tried not to be.

"Remy?" He felt Rogue shift her weight to look up at him. "Are you okay?"

He realized he had his free hand up to his temple, trying to massage away his headache. He opened his eyes and met her brilliant green stare. "Yeah, cherie. I'm fine. Just tired is all."

"Did you speak to Scott?"

"Oui."

"And? How'd it go? Did ya end up rollin' around on the ground like a couple o' pride wounded boys?"

Remy smiled. "Almost, cherie. Instead he gave me 24 hours o' logged training time this week, 10 in de danger room."

Rogue sucked in her breath. "Ouch, that's a lot, especially comin' off an injury. What did ya do? Make fun o' his wife?"

"Told him I was angry dat he wouldn' allow m' to train wit' de team."

Rogue shook her head against his chest. "Bad move."

"Yep. Least I'm allowed in de danger room now." He put his head back again and brought his massaging hand down. It wasn't working and the pounding in his head was still there.

"Remy? Are ya sure ya're okay?"

He heard the concern in her voice. "Yeah, jus' ain't been sleepin' much lately." A smirk slipped onto his lips. "Why Rogue? Y' worried about Remy?"

"Ah didn't say that, swamp rat."

"Y' don't have to. It's okay, Rougie. You c'n help it; it's just that animal magnetism I have. Handsome, sexy, charming—"

"Arrogant, conceited… arrogant."

"Smart, courageous, fun-loving."

"Arrogant, overly-macho, arrogant, angsty."

The smirk on Remy's lips grew into a full-out grin. "Hey, when ya got it, ya got it. And I'll have you know that I haven't angsted in a whole… a whole…"

"Keep talkin', sugah."

"Oh, fine." he consented. But then he mumbled quietly on the side, "But I'm still handsomesexycharmingsmartcourageousandfun-loving…" He opened one eye to see Rogue's playfully scorning expression. He closed it again and added, "Oh yeah, and arrogant."

She laughed and then, as the sound died down they fell into silence. Awkward silence. Flirting was easy; it came naturally for both of them. But in the quiets that were somehow more intimate than any words, he could feel the distance between them. They'd needed to get to know each other again in the last few weeks after he'd come back to the X-Men, and though they had come a long way, there was still that wedge between them. He wondered how much of that was his fault for still carrying the feeling of betrayal and pain around with him from being abandoned in Antarctica. He was trying to move on, to forget that and forgive, and though he didn't think he blamed her anymore, it still wasn't the same.

And it was in the silences that he felt the distance the most. It was also the silences that he tried the hardest to avoid.

"So where are de rest o' our merry bad o' mutants?" he asked through the oppressive absence of noise.

"Storm and Jean are helpin' Betsy pack and ah think the guys are all in de Rec Room chuggin' beers. Where Marrow is is anybody's guess. She's probably down in the tunnels or somethin'"

"She's not in de tunnels," he said, knowing the comment would make Rogue suspicious, but also knowing that it was the closest he would come to telling her where he was earlier. He still couldn't open up to her like that.

She gave him a strange look, but she seemed to be able to tell that he wasn't going to give her any more information. He half expected her to ask anyway, but she didn't and he wondered if she was afraid of the answer she would get, or the lack of. It was tempting to use his empathy, but he didn't, not wanting her to feel it and not wanting to invade her privacy either.

"So why aren' y' up wit' de ladies, chere?"

She gave a modified shrug in her position pressed up against him. "Ah don't know. Didn't feel like it ah guess. Ah don't like good byes much, and that would have just prolonged it."

He had lifted his head up and opened his eyes now. The TV was still on, forgotten and the volume on just loud enough to barely be heard. There was a man in a shirt and tie talking into a microphone with perfect, unaccented English. He looked to be in his mid-forties, light skin and his thinning hair blown back to make more volume. He was standing in front of what looked like a farm that the caption on the bottom of the screen said was in Michigan, talking about the recent disappearances of some local children. He droned on about how this had been the third town in the area to experience such an incident and how the kidnapper had left no clues to his identity. The local police were stumped. Remy stopped listening. It was the normal news story, the kind he'd heard a million times over.

His headache was starting to die down, and he was thankful for that. He wondered if the pain had been from not sleeping or from over exerting his spatial sense.

"Ya think they'll actually pass that?" Rogue was pointing at the TV with a white-gloved finger. The picture had changed, and now he recognized Trish Tilby, Hank's on and off girlfriend (mansion gossip had it that they were presently "off"). She was wearing a clean-cut blue suit and her short hair was brushed back off her face. It looked like she was standing in the empty United States Senate room. Rogue grabbed the remote next to her and increased the volume.

"Recently, mutant registration has been discussed quite a bit between these walls. There have been advocates of both sides passionately speaking out their views, but since the imprisonment of the forerunner in mutant-rights debates, Professor Charles Xavier, the mutant defense has been loosing ground. If the mutant registration bill is passed, then all mutants will be required by law to undergo a registration procedure that will file away their superhuman powers and identities. Until this process is completed, their rights of citizenship will be suspended. In addition, newborn babies and all children under the age of puberty will need to be tested for the mutant gene. Of course, the main question delegating the decision is whether or not such action is constitutional and just. For now, the debate rages. This is Trish Tilby, reporting from the nation's Capitol."

The TV clicked off and Rogue dropped the remote on the couch. "If they sent Trish then this must be getting' serious. The anchor usually doesn't leave the studio."

"Either dat or she made her boss very mad."

"You think they're gonna pass that?"

Remy looked down at her. "I don' know, cherie. But eit'er way, it won' make much difference. De government has already tried to do everyt'ing to control mutants, dis will just make it legal."

"Well, it ain't fair and ah ain't gonna stand for it. If they start that registration, it ain't gonna be pretty."

"Non, I doubt it will be."

"Anyway, on a different note, how's about you show a gal a good time and take her out ta dinner tonight?" Her tone was light, hopeful.

He wished he didn't have to turn her down. "Sorry, chere. Not tonight."

"Why not?"

He shook his head. "I'm busy."

She pulled away suddenly, sitting up. "Doin' what?" He saw the stubborn set of her expression, knew that she was in the perfect mood for a fight. He was too tired to argue.

"I've got some t'ings t' do. Anot'er time perhaps, cherie, if you will grace me wit' de honor o' your presence." He gave her a charming smile, and when he thought he had sufficiently sugar coated the situation, he got ready to run. "I must be goin' now. I got 24 hours o' training to break into. T'ank you for de lovely company."

He bowed slightly as he got up, ignoring the scowl on her face. Turning to leave, he threw a wave of calm at her with his empathy before he walked out the door, just to make sure she wouldn't come after him.

*******

The staff was a comforting weight in his hands, a solid tangible weapon, the one definite in the changing world around him. Carefully, he contracted in down to a small cylinder and slipped it into his duster pocket. He was in the streets of New York, in the forgotten back-alleys known only to the homeless and criminals who stuck to the shade. And it was night, a starless night so dark that even his enhanced night vision had trouble identifying the shapes that lurked around him.

The program he was running in the Danger Room now was one that he had used in the past. He'd reprogrammed it the best he could from memory, since the original was lost when Bastion had raided the mansion, and he'd managed to get it fairly accurate. There were differences, many only a circumstance of the limited abilities of the new danger room equipment. Long gone was the Shia'ar technology that allowed solid holographic enemies in realistic settings. Granted, the holographic projections were relatively good, produced by some of the best technology present on earth and made by special order, but they were intangible. The effect of a building was a cooperative effort of projections and walls that slid in and out all over to make flat surfaces. It was far from what they used to have, but it was better than nothing.

And it barely mattered for this program at all. He moved through the shadows, staying out of the way of the eyes he saw peering out of the corners. This program was one of speed, agility, and accuracy. Rather than a fight that would require the solid holograms that they no longer had, this was a chase.

He was staying low against one of the buildings, staring out around him and moving forward slowly. It was cold here, an element added to distract him, and though his arms were raised in gooseflesh under his trenchcoat, he ignored it and focused on feeling around him. His kinetic sense spread out like a blanket, feeling for the fluctuations in the field that his body created, indicating movement. And then he felt it, the slow, steady movement of someone trying to slide away very quietly. 

His eyes darted to the place where he knew his adversary was. Against one of the tall brick apartment buildings, dilapidated and ruined, he saw a shape, dark in the night. Carefully he moved toward it until he could make out the arms and legs of a man, the head with the dark mask pulled over it, the form lean and strong, young looking. He inched forward, making sure to keep to the darkness cast by the building next to him. Slowly he pulled out a card, silently. He took it in his right hand, aiming for the gun holstered to the belt his adversary was wearing.

He threw it. The throw went wide, his arm stiff and not moving the way he had been used to his whole life. The bricks a foot to the right of the man erupted in sparks and pink light. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that the explosion had really been against the titanium wall behind the projection, and that the shower of falling bricks was just a holographic image reacting to his actions.

The man's head snapped around to look at him, and the gun came into his hands. The shot fired off, but Remy was already dodging, feeling the waves ripple out from the bullet in the kinetic field around him. He rolled to the side and landed neatly on his feet, but the man was already running away, and it took him too long to recover, his reflexes too slow. By the time he took to the chase, the man's lead was significant, and he sprinted after, jumping over empty beer bottles and forgotten needles.

His lungs went into overtime, sucking in the rotten air in gasps much more pronounced than he would have liked. There was a homeless woman sleeping in the middle of the alley ahead of him, sprawled out on beds of newspapers, and he had to jump over her to avoid tripping. The man was getting closer, the distance between them shrinking.

And then the figure ahead turned a corner onto one of the wider roads. Remy followed, tilting into the turn to make it sharper. He came around and then abruptly stopped. The man was gone. He heard clanking above him and both his eyes and kinetic sense quickly darted upward in that direction. He arched his neck back, saw the man climbing a fire escape and, without hesitation, jumped up, grabbing the halfway dropped ladder and following. Pulling himself up with his arms, he eventually got his footing on the metal staircase.

The chase continued.

They came to the top of the building and with one swift move Remy pulled out a card and threw it, using his left hand this time. He'd taught himself at a young age, when training to be a thief, how to be somewhat ambidextrous, but his right throw had still always been better: faster, more powerful and more accurate. The card hit the roof right behind his adversary's feet. The man stumbled forward, but managed to keep running. Remy gained a bit more distance on him.

The rooftop was running out, and he could see the end where a small wall marked the sharp drop down the building's side. The man didn't slow. In fact, he sped up, and then he leapt up to the small wall and went over the edge. Remy kept moving, not sure what had happened, but following his instincts. He retraced the man's exact path, stepped on the wall exactly the same way, and felt the ground leave him and the air rush by.

He landed on a shorter building an alley's distance away. His legs bent with the fall, reducing the impact, and he was moving again with barely a delay. He was starting to feel better, his reflexes gradually coming closer to par as he practiced using them. His muscles were warm, tense, and slightly tired, but it felt good to be using them, to be straining them, to know that he was getting stronger.

He saw the man ahead, looking over his shoulder, and seeing Remy only a few meters behind now. He turned a corner around a square structure built on the roof and Remy followed. He heard the door slam a moment before he came around and saw it. Yanking the heavy metal open he followed, leaping down the stairs on the other side. It was a full flight before he realized that the man was gone.

He stopped and listened, quieting his breathing so he could hear better. There was nothing. And then a loud shriek rushed up from somewhere a few floors below.

Moving into action, he silently moved down the stairs, following the sounds.

The screams continued.

It took him three flights to reach them, and then he stopped, pressing his ear to the door that would open into the main hallway of the floor. Spreading out with his extra senses, he felt only one figure moving, a very distraught figure, a figure in extreme pain.

Bracing himself, he burst through the door, cards in hand, staff telescoping out. A body came into his arms and it took him a surprised moment to realize it was a woman. Looking down at the mass of weight leaned up against him, he saw wavy auburn hair with a white stripe that ran down the center.

He thought he felt his heart stop. The face came up to look at him, barely recognizable for all the splotches of blood and bruises that covered it. She was gasping. He realized that she was trying to speak.

"Who did this?" he breathed, blood already boiling with anger.

The dry lips parted a few times, her short breaths not enough to force the words out, but finally she managed to whisper two words. "New Son."

And then her green eyes closed and her breathing stopped and Rogue's body went limp. Falling to his knees with her still in his arms, he tried to sort out what was happening. And then his wide burning eyes looked up. And then he saw the bodies around him.

All the X-Men were there. All looked seriously injured. None were moving.

He stood suddenly, dropping Rouge and turning in the mist of them, searching for some movement, stretching out his empathy to graze the minds and find some sign of life.

There was none.

And then he remembered that he was in the Danger Room, and that none of this was real.

"Computer! End program!"

The images faded slowly, as he tried to figure out what had happened. That wasn't in the program; it never had been. And then he remembered that the holograms weren't solid, that he shouldn't have been able to touch them, to hold Rogue's dying body in his arms.

The projections were all gone. He looked around. He was standing on a metal platform a few feet above the ground.

And he was completely, utterly alone.

*******

She was back in her corner, retreating into the depths of his mind, afraid of being caught, of exposing herself too much. As long as she remained undiscovered she had an advantage.

It had been easier this time. She hadn't needed to share any personal memories, only to make up a scenario that would shock him, scare him. It was her best option right now, and she hoped that he would get the point, that he would stay away from New Son.

And if he didn't? She would find a way to make sure that they both didn't ruin the future again. And she would use any means necessary.

*******

The metal doors slid open quickly at his command and Remy came storming out, heading into the main hall. Somebody must have changed his program, and he was going to find out who it was. He followed the shiny walls around the Danger Room, bringing himself to the Control Room, keeping his steps quiet, despite the noisy floors.

He knew that he wasn't exactly calm or controlled right now and he could almost hear his father yelling at him to keep himself in check at all times, chastising him for loosing rationality, for taking risks.

He never had mastered that lesson.

It was the movement he felt through his kinetic sense that made him turn around.

Marrow stood there, bright pinkish-red hair sticking out among the bones that stabbed out at strange angles from her body. Her eyes were locked solidly on him, and she was fingering a long white dagger that was sticking out from her forearm.

"Aw, is the traitor afraid? Maybe a little on edge?" She smiled wickedly.

He returned her gaze with one of solidified fire. "Did y' change de program?"

She tilted her head. "Why, whatever do you mean?" Her sarcasm was biting.

"De Danger Room program. It was changed. Was it you?" His voice was low, his stance threatening. Maybe he deserved her hatred, but using the X-Men's deaths to get revenge on him was beyond acceptable.

Her smile grew. "Maybe it was." She shrugged nonchalantly.

The answer should have produced a firestorm of anger in him, but it didn't. Because she hadn't done it. He knew as soon as she had said it, feeling the confusion, the lie, with his empathy.

He relaxed a little. "Lyin' isn' nice."

"Neither are you."

They were left to staring match until Remy finally shook his head and turned away.

"Be careful where you put your back, Traitor. You never know when I might put a dagger in it."

He began walking away. "If I believed dat you would do dat, my back wouldn' be to you."

And then he was around the corner. She didn't throw anymore taunts at him. She didn't follow.

*******

He ran the diagnostic for the third time, but like both times previously the Control Room computer claimed there was nothing wrong. The program hadn't been altered since the last time he had made changes himself and the Danger Room wasn't malfunctioning.

But he knew what he'd seen.

And he also knew somewhere beneath the layers of deception in which his brain basked, that the technology couldn't be blamed for his experience. That the equipment couldn't make tangible holograms, like the Rogue he had held in his arms, so real, so solid.

And that left only one explanation. That it was from something inside of him. Just like the dreams. Just like the visions.

Remy LeBeau was suddenly very worried.

What was wrong with him?

__

End Part 3


	4. Part 4

Somewhere a baby cried ****

Part 4

The sun was starting to set and flurries of snow were beginning to fall from the sky. Little white flakes drifted past his eyes, past the stoic expression on his face, and landed carelessly on the shingles of the rooftop, slowly dissolving away into nothing. He felt one land on his nose and scrunched it up as the water dripped down to tickled him.

He didn't bother to wipe it away.

Remy LeBeau, member of the mutant fighting force called the X-Men, stared down at his teammates from his lonely spot on the roof. They were standing in front of the mansion, gathered around two members in particular, Betsy Bradock, a.k.a. Psylocke, and Warren Worthington III, a.k.a. Archangel, a.k.a., Angel depending on his mood. Betsy and Warren were throwing suitcases in the back of the yellow cab that had driven up the mansion driveway, and they were surrounded by people, all of which were trying to give them hugs and kisses.

All of the X-Men were there. Except for Marrow and Maggot, but Marrow didn't really have a kinship with the X-Men and Maggot had been transferred to Muir Island where the medical technology needed to help him heal from his injuries was available. Apparently those two slugs that had followed him around had served as more than a nuisance: they were his digestive system. As simple and as strange as that. It was assumed that both had died once the X-Men had lost their powers, but when they regained their mutant abilities, Maggot's body reacted by reproducing Eenie and Meenie. They were growing inside his stomach even now. The process was quite painful and uncomfortable, and it was best for him to be away at Muir, where Moira could take care of him.

Remy watched from a distance. He didn't wish to join them.

He wasn't normally anti-social; throw a party and he was usually the first one there. But that session in the Danger Room earlier hadn't exactly put him in the mood to be with the very people he'd envisioned, and besides that, he was almost scared of what would happen if he did join them. Would there be more hallucinations? Would he lose control?

He couldn't risk that.

And besides, he had an appointment later that evening. It might be harder for him to excuse himself and leave if he went downstairs. He and Warren hadn't gotten along as the best of pals lately, so it wouldn't be surprising to anybody if he didn't show up at all, or if he weren't easily found in the mansion that night.

The women were all embracing each other now. He was too far away to tell if any were crying and his empathy wasn't strong enough to cover the distance, but he thought he saw Storm and Jean wiping their eyes a little too often. The last time Betsy and Warren had gone off on their own like this had been after Sabertooth had attacked Betsy and nearly killed her. She had been saved by the Crimson Dawn, but it had changed her somehow, made her darker, more stoic. It had taken everybody a while to get used to her again, and now that they had she was leaving. He wondered what she would be like when she came back again. He wondered if she would come back again.

Scott was clapping Warren on the shoulder and saying something that made Beast and Bobby both snicker and then laugh to themselves. He watched them all, having such an easy matter with each other, the original X-Men, together one last time. Warren was smiling at them, nodding his blue-skinned head with the perfect blond hair. He had a heavy coat on to hide the bandaged wings that were strapped to his back, but Remy could still see the telltale bulges.

Warren and Betsy began to back away, separating themselves from the group. He wondered if the couple would miss his presence. He'd never had much of a relationship with either of them. He wondered if Warren ever wished things had turned out better between the two of them. He knew he did. But sometimes life just didn't work out like that, and Remy LeBeau had been learning to accept life's misfortunes since he was a very young child.

By chance, Warren glanced upward toward the mansion. And then his eyes fell on Remy, and froze. Remy watched him, not moving, and then he slowly nodded. It took a moment, but Warren returned the gesture. Somehow the exchange eased Remy's nerves a bit, made him think that maybe they had an understanding.

Warren's gaze had fallen but Storm was already looking up, following the direction he had been staring in. She saw Remy too, and though she was too far away for him to tell for sure, his mind could fill in the questioning, slightly disappointed look that he knew would be on her face. She turned away from the group, excusing herself, and he knew that she was coming to him.

He waited only a moment, watching her walk away, and then he began to move.

He wouldn't be here when she arrived.

Backing slowly, he quietly slipped off the roof. It was about time for his meeting with New Son's representative anyway.

*******

The bar was dark and sleazy—just as he had remembered it. This time he had made sure that he was the one that was a little late. It was a gesture to show that he still maintained some independence and freewill away from New Son.

Tonight the televisions were playing comedy central; apparently there was a deficit of sports on the networks. The crowd looked pretty much the same despite the change, and he even saw the trio of girls from the night before sitting across the bar with heavy makeup and tight clothes. They spotted him when he walked in and pointed, giggling and whispering. One of them waved him over, but he simply smiled and shook his head.

Eyes grazing the exclusive booths, he failed to find Courier anywhere. He wondered if maybe New Son had sent someone different for this meeting. There was empty booth in the far corner and he walked over and sat in it, putting his back to the girls. If New Son's associate was here, he would find Remy.

It was only a few seconds before someone dropped into the seat across from him. It was a woman. Her hair was long and jet black, pulled tightly in a bun, a few strands falling into her slanted eyes. She was dressed casual enough to fit in with the bar scene around her, but there was a conservative edge to the cut of her blouse and pants that showed she was someone important. He glanced at her surprised, but trying to hide the reaction. Was she the one he was here to meet? He'd really expected Courier to be the messenger, in fact, he'd almost assumed it. And besides that, he realized that he hadn't really considered the fact that New Son might have had female messengers, a sexist view that he was slightly embarrassed of.

He tilted his head at her as she made herself comfortable across from him, a questioning look in his eyes that nullified the need for words.

She smiled with dark red lips. "Remy LeBeau." She nodded a greeting.

"Are you de one I'm supposed t' meet?" He wasn't sure yet that she wasn't just some girl inviting herself to sit with him. Though if that were the case, his next question would be how she knew his name.

She frowned slightly. "Well, if you think I'm just here to ask you for your number, then you're wrong. We have much more important things to do."

He smirked at the jest and relaxed a little, leaning back into the booth and crossing his arms over his chest. "Ouch. De femme has bite." He was good at playing women; it would be easy to keep her on her toes.

She didn't reply to his comment, but reached into her black pocketbook for an envelope. His eyes followed it as it came across the table to him. He reached up to take it but her hand slapped over the white paper before he could. The fingernails weren't painted and were short, not very feminine and a little out of place with the rest of her outfit.

"Not yet." A finger waggled in the air. "There are some things that need to be said first."

He pulled his hand back and crossed his arms again, assuming an indifferent posture.

"New Son needs you deliver this letter to someone rather… important."

"An' who might that be?"

A smile. No answer right away. She seemed to enjoying her job of withholding important information from him. He forced himself not to care, not to reward her smugness. She seemed to finally become bored with the game. "Congressman Schecher."

He felt his eyebrows rise even as he tried to stop the reaction. What did New Son want with a Congressman of New York? Shrugging casually, he crossed his legs. "So what does your employer want wit' a politician?"

The thick red lips smiled and a few strands of fine black hair fell into her eyes. She pushed them away, irritated, as if it weren't a normal occurrence for her. "Sometimes the less information you know, the safer you are. You should know that, Remy."

He nodded. "'Course I do, cherie. But I also know that knowledge is power." He decided to take the unexpected side of the conversation, instead of playing it too catious.

She frowned, her eyes coming to meet his. "Don't play power games with my employer. You'll never win." He searched her face for a sign of threat, but he couldn't find it. There was actual concern there, as if she were really trying to give him some good advice. He reached out to see it there was more to that…

And then he realized she was blank. A wall. She was beyond the reach of his empathy except for a few minor leaks. And when he thought about it he realized that he hadn't felt a thing from her since she'd sat down, a circumstance he'd overlooked, still not completely used to the new extent of his empathic abilities. Nothing except a faint shadow. A shadow that he realized he recognized.

"So what might be de name o' de femme belle?" He leaned forward, placing a hand on the one still over the envelope. He was expecting to throw her off with his sudden change of attitude, or maybe to get her with some of his charm.

She seemed completely unaffected. After seeming to think for a moment, she answered. "Jackie." She gave him a humorous smile, as if she were laughing at some inside joke.

A moment later her demeanor returned to business-like. "You will deliver this letter to the Congressman tomorrow evening when he has retired to his home and is alone. No one besides him should ever see you, and even he shouldn't get a good enough look that he can identify you in the future." Her tone was even, practiced.

"Dat's it?"

"That's it. You don't know anything, so we shouldn't have to worry about you talking."

"Is dat de reason you're usin' me?"

"Partly. Your thieving skills should also prove to be a bit of an asset."

Remy nodded. Her hand slid off the envelope and he took it, putting it in a pocket inside his trenchcoat. "So. Jackie?" he said, rolling the name off his tongue casually.

She shrugged. "Yep." Sliding out of the booth, she stood up. It took her a moment to remember her purse and she almost walked away without it.

"Dat stand for anyt'ing?"

She didn't answer, and turned away. He watched her begin to walk and noticed the careful deliberate steps and the discomfort she seemed to have with the high heels.

She lacked all grace. Remy smiled. There was no way a woman would walk that way, heavy and blunt.

"Bye Jake."

She/he stopped, looking back at him for a moment. Her/his cheeks turned red, as she/he realized she'd/he'd been discovered. And then she/he was walking again, and was out the door.

Remy sat back, smiling smugly and patting the envelope inside his coat pocket. _Yep Remy. Y' still got it._

He saw one of the three girls at the table get up and begin to move toward him. Rising himself, he took that as his cue to get out of here and leave the dank and the noise of the bar behind.

He'd got what he'd come for.

Maybe tomorrow night he could find out what this was all about.

*******

It was almost midnight when he walked through the mansion door, trying very hard to be quiet. There had been no traffic on the way home, not many people insane enough to be out at this hour, but he had made a slight detour. The bouquet of roses in his right hand felt heavy, pulling at his already soar muscles. He figured that if he carried it with his injured arm, at least it might be some kind of therapeutic exercise.

It was a clear night, which was strange considering that it had started to snow for a while earlier. But now?—now it was as if he could see every star in the sky. He'd stopped for a while, pulling over his motorcycle to the side of the road so that he could look up at the night. It had felt so peaceful, something that was so rare to find now, and it had given him a chance to think.

He remembered the envelope in his pocket. After taking it he had realized it wasn't a letter at all, but a floppy disk. It was probably password protected, so that no one but the intended recipient could open it. Apparently, New Son didn't trust Remy completely. Remy gave a devious look to the empty living area he was now in. New Son was a smart man.

The mansion felt deserted. He stepped carefully, avoiding the creaky spots on the floor that he had memorized from his first time crossing it. The lights were all off, the mansion quiet on all levels of his senses. A smirk wandered lazily across his face. The X-Men could never survive a thief's life with the night hours they normally kept. Well, except maybe Wolverine and Stormy of course, but other than that…

He stopped.

There was a light on in the room ahead of him. And suddenly his focus all came to a point on that place, because it wasn't just any room; it was Xavier's study. 

He walked a few steps silently. His kinetic sense felt no movement inside but his empathy was ringing red alerts all over the place. Someone was there. He just didn't know who. His glowing red eyes narrowed, casting strange shadows on the walls around him and he approached the door.

It was opened slightly, the yellow light from inside bleeding out onto the hallway carpet. 

The roses were still in his right hand, but now there was a full spread of cards in his left, softly glowing as he fed his tenseness into them in the form of kinetic energy. He reached the wooden door, carefully looked around it, ready to burst through once he got a clear view of the invader.

He was almost jumping through the door by the time he realized who was inside the room, and it took all his control to stop his muscles in mid motion and keep him from loosing his cover. He managed to do it all without making a noise and without falling over. The enemy he was expecting wasn't there. No threat. No reason to cause a commotion.

Carefully, he backed up a bit, making sure he was once again in the shadows of the hallway. And then he adjusted himself so that he could see into the room, through the sliver of view he was afforded by the partly open door. 

The room was furnished; it had been the first to be restored in honor of the man who had founded the X-Men, the man who was now gone, missing since after Onslaught. There were bookshelves, these filled with books unlike in the other rooms, and there was a large hardwood desk in the center of the room with one of those comfortable chairs behind it that spun around in circles. Behind the desk was a tall window that gave a picturesque view of the mansion grounds. And beside that window, was Scott Summers.

Not Cyclops, the mutant leader of the X-Men, but Scott Summers, the man.

There was an astounding difference. There was no uniform, no yellow spandex, just an old t-shirt and shorts. His hair was tousled, and he was wearing yellow goggles with ruby quartz lenses. Where his stance usually held so much power and command, now it only held exhaustion and pain. Pain. Remy could see it written all over the man's face and clothes and countenance. He was in pain. Real and physical.

He noticed that Scott wasn't just leaning against the window frame, he was sagging against it, and his arms were crossed low, across his stomach, clutching his shirt as if that were all that was keeping him from doubling over…

And then Remy suddenly understood.

When Scott and Jean had come back from Alaska, everyone had just assumed that Scott had recovered from the bomb that Bastion had planted in his abdomen.

But he hadn't. And he was hiding it from the rest of the team. He was in pain, not even able to sleep, and he couldn't even tell his friends so that they could console him, because right now they needed someone strong to guide them. And so that was what Scott would be.

Scott Summers—leader, the ideal X-Man, impenetrable—was now a master of deception also. 

And as he stood there, defenseless, worn and tired and leaning against Xavier's window, Remy couldn't help but respect him for what he was doing. In a way they were very alike. They were both loners in the end. They both hid behind layers of carefully manufactured exterior. And tonight, they were probably both the only ones still awake in the mansion, still up to contemplate their futures, enjoying the only quiet peace both of them could ever find. Even if the effect was only temporary.

Silently, respectfully, Remy backed away from the slightly open door and continued on to the residential areas.

*******

The bouquet was still squeezed tightly in his hand, he afraid that the muscles would cramp and he would drop it. The scent of a half-dozen, red roses drifted up to meet him as he stopped in front of the door he wanted. Inside he knew Rogue was sleeping and he brushed her mind with his in a soothing caress. It had surprised him how quickly he had adjusted to the new strength of his empathic power, that he had become dependent on it so easily. But it was as obvious as seeing now, as much a part of him in its restored, full form.

He bent and left the flowers at the foot of the door for her to find in the morning. There was no note attached, no need for one. He knew she would know whom they were from and what they meant.

They meant that he still cared. That he still loved her. That he was sorry for rejecting her earlier.

Straightening, he turned and walked away, finally going to his own room.

*******

He hadn't wanted to go to sleep. He'd always felt that the nights weren't for dreaming, they were for living, experiencing the world. It was natural for him that way, and if he'd hated one thing about being on a mutant fighting team, it had been the hours he was forced to keep.

So he'd called home, knowing that his father wouldn't be asleep, and had asked a favor: could he try to find out about Congressman Schecher and any naughty ventures he'd been involved with? He also mentioned the name New Son, though he doubted any information would be available on that topic.

His father had agreed to try to find anything he could, after complaining that Remy only called when he needed something and that he should remember home more often. Remy shoved it off like usual. In his mind the Thieves Guild hadn't been home since they'd exiled him. He'd forgiven his father for that, but though he was fine with talking to him, he still didn't feel right associating too much with the leader of the Guild that had banned him.

Though he guessed Jean Luc was right. The last time he had talked to him had been before he'd left the care Tante Mante had offered when he'd been sick with pneumonia back after the whole Antarctica thing.

After calling he'd laid down in bed, not really expecting to fall asleep. But something happened, and he found himself dozing off, closing his eyes and keeping them closed.

The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes for good was the glaring numbers of the clock face reading the early morning time to him.

And then he wasn't where he was anymore.

__

He was standing in a large, dark room, filled with ornate furniture and expensive décor. From his low height, the perspective was quite intimidating. But it was nothing in comparison to the man that stood a few feet in front of him, leaning on a bow staff and gazing with red-fired eyes at him.

Maybe if he didn't move—maybe if he didn't speak, didn't cry anymore—maybe then it would be okay. Maybe. He stood perfectly still, didn't make a noise, averted his eyes.

A few long minutes passed, and the man seemed to be waiting for… something. He was like a statue, perfectly still, but terrifying, poised, ready to attack. Strong, confident, rough-cut and cruel. A killer.

His parents were dead, gone. And this man was why. This man was the monster who had done it. He knew that to the core of his being. The blood, the dirt, seeped through the man's worn pores, and he could feel it. He could feel the death hanging around the murderer.

And he hated him, hated those devil eyes that scared him so much, hated the way they made him feel, hated what their owner had done to him. He couldn't hold it in anymore, the dam of his fear buckling, and he looked up suddenly, tears in his eyes and yelled, "I hate you!" He wasn't sure exactly where the strength to do that had come from. He hadn't eaten in days and he was so tired, so emotionally drained from crying day after day.

The man cocked his head, his look contemplative, but not surprised. "I suspect y' do." He took his weight off his staff and leaned forward slightly. "An' what makes y' t'ink I de one who killed your parents?"

He looked away. "I just know."

The man nodded, satisfied. "Dat wasn' intentional. Dey weren't supposed t' kill them."

No apology. No sympathy.

There were a few coughs. They didn't sound healthy, and then he spoke again. "Y' know, cherie, y' future goes beyond dem." He pressed a button and the staff slid into itself until it was a handheld cylinder. He put it in a pouch on his belt and then walked forward until he was only a meter away. "Do y' know what you are, chil'?"

He didn't answer, just stood there wiping tears with his small, young hand.

"Y' are a mutant. Your parents ever tell you what dat is?"

He looked up at the red eyes glaring at him, at the face that gave no sign of emotion. He'd heard the word before, was taught it in school and at home, was taught to hate it. He'd never really met a mutant before, not before this evil man that stood before him. Now he understood why his whole world had hated them. But to accuse him of being one? His parents had loved him, his life had been normal, safe. He couldn't be a mutant.

"I ain't a freak," he whispered, because that was all he could manage now.

The man smiled, cruel and humorless. "So, y' parents were mutie haters, no? Ain't dat ironic."

"You don't know anything about my parents. They were good people."

He didn't answer, but instead turned and walked to a tall, dark, wood cabinet against the wall behind him. It was carved with intricate designs, but not overdone, so that it was tasteful and elegant. He opened its door and pulled something out, a sheet of paper, very worn and old looking. His fingers lifted it gently and deftly, grabbing only the edges and only long enough to place it balanced in the palms of his hands. Turning back, the man returned to his previous spot in the room.

Slowly, the man lowered it down for him to see. It was a picture, badly yellowed and torn in several places. As he looked more closely at it, he saw it was of almost a dozen people, all dressed in colored spandex and with X's labeled somewhere on their person. The colors were dull, faded with time, but he imagined the clothes must have been quite bright at one time. He scanned the faces, saw the boyish-looking face of a man with a small bandage on his forehead, saw a woman with long striped hair, saw a monster that had fangs and huge hands. And then he came upon one face that stood out, a man, with a smirk on his face, bow-staff in hand, and red eyes. He looked up suddenly, seeing a much older version of the same smoldering gaze.

"Do y' know who these people are?" he asked.

He shook his head, wondering again about the man's identity.

"Dey called themselves de X-Men."

He felt his eyes widen as he recognized the name. It had come up in his history class a few times. They were an outlawed terrorist group from the pre-Human/Mutant War age. Not much was known about them, not much was known about anything from that time.

"I see y' do. Forget everyt'ing dey taught y' in school. It's wrong. Y' have a lot to learn."

Finally he found his voice, managed to get some sort of strangled sound out. "I have nothing to learn from you," he said with disgust.

The man chuckled. "From me? Non, not from me." And then the man looked up at the door as if he were expecting something. A moment later two strong looking men came in. They grabbed his small arms, pulled him away with them. He was too worn even to scream.

End Part 4


	5. Part 5

Part 5

Part 5

Walking through the empty halls toward the kitchen, Remy tightened the bandana around his head, hearing the fabric squeak from the moisture his wet fuzz of hair had given it. The shower this morning had been badly needed to wake him up. Especially after last night.

He was tired of the dreams; it was time to do something about them.

__

I am Remy, hear me roar. He thought to himself, baring his mind's teeth at the images that had disturbed him for the last few days.

He shook his head, feeling the bandana staying satisfactorily secure. He really needed to get more sleep.

The hallway was quite deserted, his spatial sense not picking up much in the way of movement and he decided that the X-Men were probably all downstairs for breakfast already. 

The dreams were so vivid, experienced in the first person as if he had been there himself. And they included the Witness. A chill rode its way up and down his spine. He needed to know where they were coming from. 

Lines of movement started to streak the kinetic field that it was his mutant ability to sense and manipulate, and as he came closer to the kitchen they became more vivid, more pronounced. He counted five separate patterns.

Turning the last corner that blocked his view brought him into a bustling breakfast scene that could only exist in the X-Mansion. It must have been Jean's turn to cook, because she was standing at the stove flipping pancakes and transferring them to Beast, who stood ready at her side with a pile of plates balanced on three of his four limbs. Scott was sitting at the table, scowling at the hole in the wall that Remy had so deftly created the day before. He looked normal and healthy, so different than he had the last night. 

The floor was clean now, the tiles shining as if they had just been mopped and smelling _very_ strongly of pine. On the table, place settings had already been put out, knives and forks and 5 different flavors of syrup to please every whim of the varied tastes the mansion harbored—plus 7 or 8 bottles of spices for the more daring meal taker. Remy grinned wickedly.

Jean was the first to acknowledge Remy's presence. "Good morning, Remy," she commented, without turning to see him enter the room.

"Mornin' Jean," he replied.

Rogue looked up from the refrigerator she was peering into enthusiastically. She turned to meet his eyes. Her hair was tied back in a messy ponytail, and she was still in the tank top and pajama pants she must have slept in. "Well, look at the swamp rat the tide brought in this mornin'," she commented, green eyes bright and joking. She smiled and turned away.

She'd liked the flowers. He'd expected that the roses could go either way: she could react by thinking he was trying to buy her off and get mad, or she could appreciate it as a thoughtful gesture. It was really a toss of the die depending on her mood, but Remy had always liked a good gamble. Apparently, he was lucky today.

There was one more occupant unaccounted for, and a sharp laugh from the corner rounded out the five he'd detected earlier with the identity of Bobby Drake, AKA Iceman, one of the original X-Men and the resident joker. Remy walked further into the room, until he could get a clear view of Bobby in full ice form, leaning back and holding his stomach as he laughed and pointed. Following the line of his finger, Remy saw the hole in the wall, now covered with a thick plate of ice, but molded into a relief of Scott's face, scowling and marred with a curled moustache, bushy eyebrows, and spiky hair. Scott was obviously not amused.

"Bobby, stop. Now."

Jean smiled, turning around, her long red hair blocking half her face, but her playful expression still visible. "I don't know, honey. I kind of like it."

Scott's expression was horrified. "Jean! Stop encouraging him!"

Bobby was still laughing hysterically in the corner, but the image was already fading, the ice becoming smooth and flat. Remy watched it disappear, eyebrows raised slightly. He hadn't known that Bobby had so much control over his powers, to create something so exact and detailed. As a mutant at least, he had matured.

Remy took a seat at the table, across and a few chairs over from Scott. "See," he mumbled, mostly to himself but loud enough so that most of the X-Men could hear now that their laughter had subdued itself. "Dat hole wasn' all dat bad. It could be our new form of entertainment. Maybe I was onto somet'ing here. Instead o' T.V., y' just punch a hole in de wall and de kids are amused f'r hours."

Beast was coming toward the table with plates full of pancakes, delicately balanced in his blue, furry arms. He rolled his eyes. "Of course, you forget my Cajun friend, about the added cost of the heating bill, which would not only put families across the country into poverty, but which would exhaust our limited and valuable energy resources so that all of our many powered gadgets would cease to work and all we would have left to do is stare at the hole that had caused our predicament."

Remy looked at him for a moment, blinking and unconsciously taking the plate of pancakes Hank handed him. "So, in de end, de hole is de only t'ing left dat still works. Right?"

"I guess so."

Remy grinned suddenly. "Durable _and_ entertaining. I like dat."

Hank's answer was only to chuckle and shake his head. 

The table was already crowding as the X-Men all gathered to take their seats. Rogue took a chair next to him, trying not to make the seating arrangement look intentional. She busied herself with cutting up her pancakes and dowsing them in syrup, not meeting his gaze. It was funny how someone so strong willed, so independent and powerful could be so terrified at the same time. The insults she'd more than occasionally throw at him, the walls he constantly ran into, all an attempt not let her care too much, just in case she ended up getting hurt. He'd spent his lifetime analyzing people, categorizing personality types to predict people's actions, to find the perfect target, and with an empathic ability his impressions were usually right. Gently, deliberately, he touched her mind with his. Her gaze snapped to him and he smirked before looking away.

"—thought I should tell you all that Remy will be joining our training session after breakfast. I've decided to bring him back to limited duties," came Scott's conversational tone, grabbing Remy's attention with the mention of his name.

Remy met Scott's eyes but didn't say anything.

He caught Jean's smile from the corner of his vision. "So does that mean that Remy can start doing the dishes again?"

Remy's gaze snapped to her in terror. "Dishes? But I be so sore, Jean. De pain, it's horrible." He gave her the most pathetic expression he could muster.

"Try it on someone who'll buy it. The clean up is yours today, Cajun."

She was still looking at him as he gave her a downcast look, and then there was a voice in his brain, one that didn't belong there. *Scott wants me to start training you in the use of your empathy,* Jean thought into his mind.

She gave no indication that she was talking to somebody telepathically, and he tried to do the same, masking his surprise as smoothly as possibly. She casually looked down and began to eat some of her pancakes. He followed suit, almost forgetting to shower his food in spices.

*No,* he thought back rather loudly. He didn't need any telepaths in his head right now, there was enough of a mess in there already.

He waited for her response, not expecting what came. She gave him a mental raspberry, and he realized she was getting back at him for ignoring her the other day in the tunnels. *This isn't a choice. You need to learn how to use your abilities, or else they are going to become a weakness for others to exploit.*

*Blah, blah, blah.*

She asked someone to pass the syrup out loud and he wondered how she could talk and keep a mental conversation at the same time, when he could barely manage to keep his expression unsuspecting and mentally speak.

*Just give it a try. I'm not going to invade your mind, simply guide you.*

Remy saw Scott give Jean a curious look and he wondered whether she was talking to him mentally or if Scott could just feel her distraction through their psychic rampart.

He thought about it, knowing she was right. He'd been learning to use every resource to its maximum ability since he was a child. To not do so now would be against his nature. He had walls; he could bring them up in his mind if she tried to go in too far. And he found with surprise that he trusted her not to push too hard. *Alright,* he said, almost forgetting to speak in his mind. *But if y' push too deep de lesson is over.*

*Deal,* she replied.

He got the sensation that she was nodding. Distantly he heard the sounds of the X-Men eating and far away conversation. Somebody laughed. He paid attention only long enough to make sure it didn't involve him.

*When?* he asked.

*How about an hour after the training session ends?*

*Fine.*

He felt another nod and then the connection was gone. He breathed a mental sigh of relief at having his mind belong to himself again. He really hated sharing the space between his ears with psychics. It put him too much on edge.

Everyone was just about finishing up eating, and he realized that even his plate as almost empty. Standing, he reached up and stretched, trying to look casual enough that nobody would notice his movements. If he was lucky, he would make it out of here before anybody remembered the dishes thing. Carefully, he sneaked around the table, leaving the X-Men to their chattering. If anybody could talk, it was these people.

He made it almost to freedom before a patch of unexpected ice appeared in front of him. He stepped down on it and his legs came out from beneath him. There was a blue blur of movement and then Beast was behind him, catching him before he could fall. A chorus of laughs circled the room, with Bobby's riding above the rest. As soon as he had his balance within reach, Remy pushed off of the furry Beast and started toward Bobby.

"Oh, now dat was not cool, Ice Cube. Remy gonna make you regret dat." He didn't really intend to hurt him, just scare him a little.

"You know what, my young Cajun friend? I do believe that you are in need of a hug right about now," came Beast's voice over his shoulder. Before Remy had a chance to react, there were two very furry and very strong arms wrapped around his waist, picking him up and carrying him to be deposited in front of the sink.

The arms were gone. There was a pause and then Hank was dumping an armful of plates into the sink to be rinsed and placed in the dishwasher.

Remy could feel the flurry of movement behind him as he began to turn to protest. By the time he was facing the table all the X-Men were gone, leaving only dirty plates behind. He turned back to the sink, growling as he saw the pile of used eating ware there.

And then he decided that if he was going to be stuck here doing chores, he was at least going to enjoy himself.

The kitchen filled with the sounds of Bruce Springstein's _Born in the USA_. With a Cajun accent. Sung very loud. And purposely off key. He even let his voice crack a few times. That would teach them to make him wash dishes.

And when the song was done, he sang it again. Even louder.

*******

The sweat was dripping into his eyes now, burning and blurring his vision, but he couldn't wipe it away, not if he wanted to keep a move ahead of Cyclops.

He saw a yellow streak swipe toward him, and he ducked with the accuracy that his kinetic sense allowed him. As Cyclops went with the momentum of his attempted punch, Gambit aimed a kick at his adversary's exposed side, targeting the black, circular device attached there. Blinking lights beckoned him, promising him another point. The lights blurred into a pale yellow glow. He blinked. The image cleared.

Somehow Cyclops managed to avoid him, rolling to the ground and coming up ready to attack again. But it was slow, lagging, and Gambit knew that that he was wearing him down. Now the trick was to see who would run out of energy first.

There was a sudden scream from somewhere off to the side, probably from one of the many other sparring matches occurring in the Danger Room presently disguised as a city metropolis. Cyclops' head snapped around to find the source of the noise. And Gambit saw his opportunity. Taking advantage of the moment of distraction, he dove forward, grabbing Cyclops at the waist and bringing him to the floor. The next moment he had Cyclops under him and had tagged all three targets that his adversary was wearing: both sides and the chest. They beeped indignantly.

A hand grabbed the back of Gambit's coat, the movement hardly discernable in the melting pot of kinetic trails that his mind was detecting from all the fighting going on. It was strong, wrapping itself in the fabric of his trench coat and even the spandex underneath, and as the ground left him and he was propelled backwards, he saw that the hand had belonged to Wolverine, one of Cyclops' teammates in this training exercise. There was a moment when there was nothing under him and he knew that landing was going to hurt. He tried to relax his muscles to get ready for it. And then the floor was back, announcing its presence painfully. Hard concrete from a rough sidewalk dug into his back.

The bulky Canadian was moving toward him. "That was low Cajun, attackin' a man while he was lookin' after someone's safety."

Gambit climbed to his feet, feeling his body dragging and aching, reminding him that he wasn't used to this much activity yet. His arm screamed at him. It had been utterly useless after the first fifteen minutes, stiffening and jamming as soon as he tried to exert it. Now it was simply dead weight that he had to worry about getting in the way. "So is attacking a man from behind." He had to work very hard at making the words a steady growl that wasn't interrupted by gasps for air.

"No," Wolverine shook his head, almost close enough for hand to hand combat now but still not going offensive. "that's just called surprise."

And then the attack came. Wolverine's fist was like a freeze frame in Gambit's vision before he dodged away to avoid it, but the Canadian's leg was already in the way to block the evasive movement, and instead of smoothly avoiding the blow, Gambit found himself tripping and off-balance. He caught himself before he could fall, but he lost valuable seconds that Wolverine used to elbow the target on his side. It beeped loudly. Gambit cursed under his breath.

"Another point scored on the Cajun."

He really regretted the no-power rule. A well-placed card would be perfect for wiping the feral grin off of Wolverine's face.

"Oh, y' gonna pay for dat one, 'Bub'."

Wolverine smiled wider as Gambit came at him again. He threw a left punch aimed directly at the toothy grin. It was blocked and he followed with a kick. Blocked. A punch. Blocked. Another. Blocked. And then Gambit saw his plan taking shape as Wolverine's evasive manuevers brought him toward the building that lined the sidewalk they stood on. It was brick and very old, with a rusty fire escape hanging down the side…

Gambit suddenly jumped. His hands grabbed onto a fire escape hanging from the wall next to them, left one holding tight, right one weak and stunned. He almost slipped off, but held tight, fighting the pain, as momentum took his body forward and over his adversary's head. He flipped and twisted in the air, the movement smooth despite its rough beginnings. The landing came, legs bending to keep his balance, and he was facing Wolverine's back. His roundhouse kick was delivered before Wolverine could turn around, smacking him across the shoulders hard enough to throw him to the ground. He tried to roll to break the fall, and made it onto his back before Gambit was standing over him, stepping on the target that contrasted with the yellow spandex on Wolverine's chest. Gambit reached into the pocket of the long trench coat he wore over his spandex uniform. A small metal cylinder came out easily, the staff that had been useless most of the training because of his injured arm. It telescoped out in a fluid motion.

Gambit smirked, aiming the staff at Wolverine's head. "I believe de appropriate phrase is: Bang. Y' dea—Que!?"

There was a 'snikt' sound as a pair of long metal claws suddenly became visible and wrapped themselves through and in the fabric of the long trench coat Gambit wore. Wolverine yanked down. Hard. All the while propelling his body out from under Gambit's crumbling stance and onto his own blue-booted feet. Gambit went down, now off-balance, with a horrible noise of ripping fabric. He landed on his back already starting to roll out of the way, but Wolverine was too fast and made it on top of him before he could, pinning him with his superior weight.

He slapped Gambit's target and waited for the beep.

"Sorry, Gumbo. Were ya about to say, 'Y' dead?'" He chuckled and bared his teeth.

And then the city dissolved around them, melting back into the plain metal walls of the danger room. A computerized voice announced that the timed session was now over. Wolverine rolled off of him and Gambit took a deep, unconstrained breath that about 200 pounds had been strangling. He lay there for a moment, and then fought his way to his feet, keeping as much pain out of his movements as he could. There was no fighting to distract the X-Men now; he had to be more careful nobody noticed how bad-off he really was. The last thing he wanted was sympathy. Or worse. Mothering.

"Y' jus' got a lucky shot," he mumbled to himself as he followed Wolverine to where the X-Men were all collecting near the Danger Room's exit.

Wolverine caught the comment and threw back over his shoulder: "Keep tellin' yerself that, Bub. I'll rematch ya anytime. Like I always say: I'm the best there is at what I do."

Gambit wondered exactly what it was Wolverine thought he did. His breathing was slowing now, almost normal again, and the adrenaline was beginning to drain. He could feel his muscles slowly relaxing and the switch his mind was starting to make from combat mode to normal, everyday, Remy-mode.

He came up behind Storm and Rogue. They both turned to glance at him briefly, before their attention diverted to Cyclops as he began to conclude the training session with his assessment of it. Remy only gave it half of his attention, letting the other half think about how nice a shower would be right about now and about how good it would feel to get off the silly spandex that heroes always seemed to insist upon. He'd never particularly cared for the feel of the stretchy material—he was more of a silk and cotton kind of guy. He wore it more for the look than anything, and because it was admittedly convenient in combat for the freedom of movement it allowed.

Cyclops was reading off the tally of scores for the amount of times each X-Man's target had been hit. Remy had done okay—not great, but decently, falling into the middle range of scores. He should have done better. He knew that, but full recovery was still not in his grasp.

Apparently Remy's team had lost and Cyclops followed up that information by expressing his disappointment with the lack of teamwork the group had shown. At the start of the exercise, two teams had been created, but the session had consisted more of isolated scrimmages than collected team efforts. Individual targets on individual people had simply promoted individual combat.

And then Cyclops was finally done talking. Remy sighed, relieved. Ahead of him the Danger Room door slid open and X-Men began to file out. He followed, behind the group, the last to pass Cyclops where he waited with Jean for everyone to leave. The yellow, red-lensed visor turned toward him. "I expect Hank to be seeing you soon. I want a check-up after every session, especially since the logs say you were in here the other day but never stepped foot in the medlab afterwards." 

Remy almost argued, but then considered how much energy that would take. His muscles hurt. His clothes were soaked. And it was getting harder to hide the pain on his face. He gave Scott a dirty look, and nodded, walking on past and out of the room.

Storm was waiting there for him.

Long white hair was tied back in a tight ponytail at her neck. He remembered how she had looked in pictures from before he had first met her, retro mohawk and all. And then later with her short bob and the variation bob with two longer section in the front. Thankfully the mohawk phase had passed, and the bobs hadn't been too bad, but he liked her hair like this best: held away from her face so that her ice blue eyes could be seen against her dark complexion, the light blush to her cheeks, slightly darker now from the workout, complementing her. He'd always found her to be quite beautiful, in an exotic sort of way, but they had been friends first and he'd never felt the need to change that relationship. Besides, there was Rogue.

He stopped beside her, and then started walking again so that she could fall into step beside him. He nodded a greeting. "Hey, Stormy. How y' feelin'?

"Hello, Remy." A slight pause. "I believe I have been better." Her voice sounded tired.

He looked at her then, past the perfect model-worthy face. He found the weary lines there, the tight muscles, the determined gaze, fighting something inside. She wouldn't meet his eyes, looking forward down the hallway and the lift they were walking towards with all her apparent attention.

"Injuries still hurtin' y'?" he asked gently. He knew the answer, the question was just to let her admit it.

His mind flashed back to an image weeks ago: Blood, dark and red and condemning meeting white hair, covering her chest as she fought against internal injuries, Hank and Cecilia frantically working over her, telling him to leave. It was a miracle she was alive. Much like himself.

She sighed and looked at him finally. "I am getting better, perhaps as quickly as can be hoped. I am just… anxious. This feeling of weakness, of being so tired—I hate it." Her eyes fell to the floor again. He watched her, such a strong-willed woman. As long as he'd known her, she had never let anything drag her down, had always been determined, independent, and bent on accomplishing the impossible. Maybe that was why she followed Xavier's dream.

Her eyes came to him suddenly, as if she were remembering something. "I am sorry. I should not be so selfish. How are you doing, Remy?"

Now it was his turn to look away. He gave a chuckle meant to sound carefree. It sounded strangled instead. "We Cajuns, we rubber-made. It take a lot to put us down, and when it do, we bounce right back."

"Liar," she said simply. It was a statement, not an accusation.

He didn't say anything.

"I can see it in your eyes," she continued in that calm yet comforting way of hers. "I can see it in the way you hold yourself, in the way you move, hear it in the way you talk. You are hurt more than you tell us."

There was a long silence, but he felt his eyes on her, waiting for him to deny it. Anybody else he would have let sit in the silence. She wasn't anybody else. "Y' know me too well, 'Roro." He still wouldn't admit it directly, not when part of him still liked to deny it, to pretend that everything was okay when he was sitting still and couldn't feel the pain.

"Well, I have known you since I was a child."

He smiled, thankful that she wasn't going to try to mother him. "Please," he said, jokingly rolling his eyes and putting a hand to his head, "don' remind me."

She played along, giving him mock indignation. "As I remember, you were more of a child than myself. I saved your life on more than one occasion."

"Oh yeah?" He raised his eyebrows. They had reached the lift now, and they stepped into it alone, all of the other X-Men either ahead of them or behind on the trip upstairs to the mansion.

"Indeed."

"Name one time."

She pushed some stray hair back out of her face, it having found its way loose in the fighting earlier. "The time you tried to seduce the girl in New Orleans one night in a restaurant after we had just done a big job. We had not even gotten rid of the loot yet; it was all outside sitting in your car. But of course, you were hungry and dinner could not wait any longer." She smiled gently, but he thought he detected some smugness in it. "You saw a redhead and decided to make conversation. It turned out she was a cop and had seen your picture before on the wanted list at her station."

"How was I supposed t' know she was a cop!" he said in a defensive tone. "'Sides, we got away. 'Course, I stole a kiss first… Dat was one fine femme." He smirked, knowing that his eyes probably looked quite evil in his expression.

Storm raised her brows now. "We only got away because I pretended to choke and she had to give me the heimlech maneuver. She didn't have any record of me and as far as she knew I was just a child in danger. And," Storm was smirking now, "and that kiss. She was using your hormones to distract you so that she could put on the handcuffs."

His smile flipped over and he rubbed his wrists remembering the metal biting into his skin, harder than it was meant to, as his lips pulled away from hers in surprise. She'd gotten him good. "Oh, fine. But even if she had tried t' take me in, I coulda picked de locks and got away."

"That is not the point." Her tone was laughing. "The point is that I saved you, making me right."

He was grumbling as the lift door opened to show the main floor. They stepped out together. "I wouldn' classify dat as saving my _life_, and besides," he added, not ready to let her have the last word, "I saved your life on a few occasions too. One—I mean two words. Shadow King." He started regretting the words right after he said them. They still didn't know where the Shadow King was after being freed from the prison Psylocke had made, and mentioning him might not have been the best idea.

There was nothing for a moment… and then…

"Thank you," she said. It was so sudden, so unexpected, that it startled him out of his thoughts. He looked at her, meeting the blue eyes that were staring at him. There was silence and then he looked away.

"Sure Stormy, anytime."

"Remy?"

"Yeah?" They were climbing the stairs now.

"How are you?" she asked. And he knew from the tone of her voice that she wasn't asking the same question as before. She wasn't asking about his injuries, or his life, she was asking about _him._

He thought for a moment. "I t'ink I'm okay." He turned his head toward her. "How 'bout you, Stormy?"

Her words tumbled out slowly, with spaces in between as she considered. "I believe that I too am… okay."

"Dat's good t' hear," he replied as they reached the hallway of the residential rooms and the place where their paths would split. "As always, it be a pleasure talking wit' you. Later, Stormy."

She smiled. "Goodbye, Remy."

And then he turned and walked away.

*******

It was quiet near the boathouse, except for the lapping of water against the dock in a gentle, steady rhythm. Patterns fell onto the grass designed by a high sun shining through still trees. He stepped through them, watching them change with his perspective and view until the wooden planks of the dock took over and blocked them out.

The house itself was starting to look aged, the wood siding weathered and faded. Somehow it had managed to sit here unscathed while the mansion itself was battered and broken time and time again. The result was a sense of peace, of untouched beauty found in survival. He ran his hand over the splintering siding, spreading out his senses to reach beyond the walls.

His mind touched another, one that was waiting for him to trip some invisible doorbell. One that was sealed in walls of armor thicker than his own and so much more efficient than his would ever be. No one got in that she didn't want in. Of course the surface was open, her welcome mood, her curiosity, but beyond that… she was as much an island as anybody else.

He reached the door, didn't get a chance to knock before she was there opening it for him. He wondered why she didn't just use her telekinesis. If she wanted to, she could make everything happen for her without ever moving a muscle. It must be tempting sometimes. Maybe that was why she didn't.

"Mornin' Jeanie," he greeted her with a charming smile.

She nodded in return. "Hello Remy." She stepped aside to let him in. He walked into the room, noticing every detail immediately, from the dark, patterned couch to the 24 inch TV screen, to the coffee table covered with magazines ranging from "Today's Gardener" to "Vanity Fair". 

"Scott will be gone for the next hour, so we should have plenty of time to work without distractions."

Remy nodded, turning to face her where she stood in front of the now closed door.

"Where are you most comfortable?" she asked.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Sometimes it's easier to reach inside your mind when your body is comfortable."

He smirked. "De bed."

She gave him a scorning look. "No," was her simple answer.

His answer was a shrug and a forcibly casual look. The flirting was only there to hide his nervousness, an avenue to occupy his mind with instead of filling it with his fears and uncertainties, his worries and anxiety about having a psychic inside his mind. He was used to hiding in the shadows, had been made adapted for it in every way, from his especially acute eyesight to his heightened mental barriers. But Jean's thoughts were like flashlights in his mind. He could feel her grazing the surface, trying to sense his mood, even if she left his actual thoughts to himself.

He nodded toward the couch they were standing only a few steps away from, patterned in a mottle of dark colors that looked like they were trying to imitate flowers.

"That will work fine," she said. "Would you like anything before we start? Something to drink?"

What he really wanted was a nice cold beer. But he didn't say so, simply shook his head 'no'. The sooner they started the sooner they finished. And there were some things to discuss first.

"What exac'ly you planning t' do, Jean?" They were sitting down on the couch now, each at opposite ends with a cushion sitting in the neutral ground between them. She sat in indian style, facing him, he simply shifted his body a little in her direction. He felt the cushion sink beneath his weight, trying to ward him into a false sense of comfort.

"I'm simply going to project my presence into the surface of you mind so that I can guide you in the use of your empathy—"

"Non." He shook his head vigorously. He'd been thinking about it since Jean had asked him to this lesson, and he had decided that he didn't want her in his mind, especially with the visions he'd been having lately. Who knew what she would find? Maybe things he didn't even know were there.

"Remy, you're being difficult. I'm not going to invade your privacy, simply direct your power. Kind of like when your father tries to teach you to ride a bike and he holds the handle bars and walks with you until you get the hang of balancing."

He could feel his strong jaw setting itself tightly, and he knew his eyes were glowing. "M' father never taught me to ride a bike." He thought he felt her regret her words in the light connection she was still keeping with him, but he wasn't sure. It was hard for him to interpret the things he felt from other people a lot of the time.

She sighed. "Then how do you expect me to teach you?" Her green eyes challenged him to find another way.

"Tell me. Use words like de rest o' de world does."

Her fire-red hair swayed back and forth as she shook her head. "It's not that easy. The energies that guide psychic communication can't be explained in words… you have to feel it… you have to know it." She gestured vaguely in the air with her hands.

"I wan' you t' try anyway. Otherwise, dis lesson is over now." He stood up to leave, giving his threat more force.

Her eyes examined him for a long moment. They narrowed. "What is it you want to hide so badly anyway?"

He watched the suspicion draw her face into shadows, suspicion that he knew would have never appeared there before Antarctica, before the X-Men realized just how much they didn't know about him.

The hostility in his voice couldn't be helped. "Exactly what are y' accusing me of?"

She continued to stare at him for another long time. He fought with himself to meet her gaze, fighting the belief that she could see down into his mind, see all the bloodstains there. The past was gone. It was over. It was time to move forward.

"Jus' give it a try, Jean. It ain't gonna hurt."

Her gaze softened. She shook her head as if she were trying to shake off her mood. "I'm sorry. I've just been a little… stressed lately," she mumbled, and then said more coherently, "Fine, we'll try it."

He sat back down, closer this time and with one knee up on the couch so that he was facing her. "Merci." He wondered if her "stress" had to do with how he'd seen Scott in Xavier's study the night before.

There was a black hair-tie around her wrist and she used it to tie her long hair up in a quick pony tale. Somehow she managed to make it look rather decent. Perhaps such was a special power that all the X-women shared. They always avoided looking as messy as they should in situations, one case in point was their uncanny resistance to looking disheveled in battle.

He tightened the bandana in his hair that had returned after his second shower of the day forced on by the training session that morning. Resettling himself on the couch, he made sure that he was comfortable; he had a feeling he would be sitting here for a while.

She did the same and then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her expression similar to what she usually wore when preparing for some great psychic task.

"I t'ought we agreed. You stay outta my mind." His body tensed and his mind mirrored the reaction.

"We did. Relax, I'm not going into your head. I'm just trying to run through each step that I'm going to bring you through, in my own head. Maybe if I'm experiencing it I'll be able to explain it better. Now close your eyes."

He closed his eyes, but kept his senses on alert, making up for the loss of his sight.

"And relax," she added sternly. "You're going to have to believe that no one is going to hurt you for a while. Until you get more experienced, that's the only way for you to reach the plane of your own mind."

He muttered a few complaints, but tried to do as he was told, running through each muscle group in his mind a forcing it to release its tension.

"Now, I want you to try to forget the outside world. I want you to go to that place right before you fall asleep at night, where the world ceases to exist and yet you are still awake."

He hesitated. "What if y' don't sleep at night?" he meant it to delay, she took it as him being difficult.

"Sssh. Quiet. Just focus."

A deep breath of air found its way into his lungs, swirling around, held there for a moment in the darkness and then slowly released. She had no idea what she was asking him to do, where she was forcing him to go. That place, right before the nightmares could capture him in their grasp, was where the screams lived, where he was defenseless, too far from reality to escape yet too aware to ignore it all. That was where memories of the past came back on him unbidden, where he could be haunted freely. No matter how composed he was when awake, no matter how at peace with himself he thought he was, no matter how much he really put his past behind him, this was always the place where it came back, where he lived out the torture of a subconscious bent on reminding him of all he had ever been.

The darkness was closing in now, getting deeper. He almost turned back, almost opened his eyes so that he could see Jean's face, something tangible to remind him that he was still alive, that he could find his way back if he wanted, but then he heard her voice, so distant now, beckoning him onward.

"Reach around you, pull in all you psychic power. Wrap yourself in your empathy so that you wear it like a cloak… Here is where we surpass normal people… this is where your abilities come in. They can reach the conduit to the psychic plane, but they can't make themselves into psychic energy to enter it. You can."

Her voice was far away, and he felt like she was calling to him over a faraway canyon, her words carried on the wind.

He gathered his strength blindly, not sure of what he was doing, pulled in his empathic energy. He was starting to hear the screams now, the icy cold of their pain blowing at him from the depths of his conscious. It was always there, couldn't be forgotten nor erased, his empathy had left an imprint in his mind because he had felt every single Morlock cry of pain as deeply as if it were his own…

He pulled the energy tighter and tighter, twisted it around himself to act as a barrier against the ghosts that haunted him, against the chill that followed him. *Jean?* he called out uncertainly. It was only after he said it that he realized he'd only thought it.

*I'm here,* she replied, her voice echoing through his mind, still far away but louder than before. She'd kept her end of the deal. She hadn't gone into his mind, was only throwing her thoughts at him from her own with enough strength that he couldn't help but hear them.

*What now?*

He thought he felt a smile. *Look down.*

He did, and he almost jumped. He saw his body, only not like he saw it everyday of his life when he got out of bed in the morning. It was blue, lightning bursts of energy streaking across the surface, and had a sort of translucent quality. The details were vague, he was just an outline and it reminded him of how Bobby Drake looked in ice form, only this was more fluid, always changing somehow, yet always recognizable as himself.

*How?* he breathed, amazed.

She chuckled. *Amazing, isn't it? This is your psychic body. This is what we use to travel on the psychic plane. What does it look like?*

His eyes followed the lines of his limbs, traveling over the familiar lines of his body that were now so alien. He got the impression that something was missing, but he couldn't place what it was. *Wow, I look good.* He tried to send her a smirk.

She laughed. *Don't love yourself too much or anything. Really. Describe what you see to me.*

He touched his left arm with the fingers of his right. There was a spark and a surge of energy that he interpreted as touch. *M' body is all a kind o' glassy blue. It's hard t' describe, but it's a really deep kind o' blue… like de kind you see on a clear, cloudless day when y' feel like y' can jus' fall into the sky... An' dere are sparks, lightning coursing t'rough m' limbs.*

*Lightning? Like electricity?*

*Oui. Why? What does dat mean?*

*It means that you are a very strong empath. The intensity of color and sparks of energy show the strength of your power*

He held his fingers apart, watched the sparks dance between them. It was dark here, and the electricity was offset by the depth of the blackness. The screams were quieter now, unable to touch him as easily now with his newly created armor. He looked around, saw that this place was not simply a black hole, but that there was a forward and a back, a left and a right. Behind him he could see the light of the outside world, distant and far away, sounds echoing down as if through a long tunnel. In front of him he could sense the heaviness of sleep, could see a faded whirlwind of colors and he realized that the screams had a shape, streaks of red shrieking through the mix of other shades and hues. He watched them, and realized something… they were coming from somewhere else, migrating past him. He turned to follow their path and saw that they came from the left.

His past. He turned to face that direction and saw the memories drifting there, saw the pain bleeding out to fill his dreams, saw the hemorrhage that kept him from sleeping every night.

*Remy?* he almost didn't hear her through the sea of his own thoughts.

*Yah?* His eyes were glued to the past, to the things he saw there, both happy and sad.

*We're ready for the next step now. I want you to turn around, back the way you came, but I want you to hold on to your powers tightly, keep them around you. I'm not sure how else to explain that. You're just going to have to figure it out on your own.*

He looked back over his shoulder, saw the distant light there. *Where will dat take me?*

Her voice drifted to him. *Back to reality. Only you'll be able to see it from the view of the psionic plane. It's like… like you are in another dimension looking at our world from a back door. The normal coverings don't apply, and for you, since you are an empath, emotions will show as plain as clothing.*

*I have t' do dis every time I want to use m' empathy?* He saw the light flickering in the distance.

*No. As you get better you'll learn shortcuts to use. This is just a deep meditation to help you get more in tune with the psychic plane.*

He nodded, wondered if she could sense the movement. *Oh,* he added, just in case she couldn't.

His eyes traveled over his body again, before he started to move forward. He gathered his empathy tighter around him, over every limb as he surveyed it. And then he came to his left hand and he realized what was missing. The diamond wasn't there, the scar tattooed between his knuckles and wrist that had appeared after his last encounter with Sinister. He stared at it for a second, told himself that its absence wasn't so strange, that his whole body was lacking in detail and that something so small had a right to be missing. But then he noticed something else: a thin stream of light that streaked out from the spot where the diamond scar should have been. His eyes followed it, the string leading him on until he faced the one direction he hadn't explored. If sleep was forward and reality was backward, and the left was the past… then the right must be… the future. He followed the glowing string with his eyes until he faced the darkness there, the pure emptiness of a place not yet filled with experience. The light streaked down into the distance, until it faded out of his sight.

He began to follow it, the bright filaments beckoning him on, calling him to see the secrets hidden in his mind. Faraway, light years away, he thought he heard Jean calling after him. He tried to send her a message, to tell her he was taking a slight detour, but he wasn't sure if the message ever reached her.

And frankly, he didn't much care.

*******

He was coming. She could feel the pull of his form as he came closer to where she was, huddled in this vacant corner of his mind. She'd worried when he'd first agreed to this lesson, worried that he would get too close, that he would see something he couldn't see before. She had been right.

She could have stopped him though. She could have given him anything from a headache to a life threatening illness to keep him from coming here.

But she hadn't. She told herself that it wouldn't have mattered, that he would have tried again, as soon as he was well again, that she couldn't hide forever, that he would discover the place in his head where she lived eventually. She told herself that he probably wouldn't find her anyway, that he'd probably overlook her presence completely. Obviously that last part had been wrong.

These were the things she told herself. But the truth—the truth, that was different. The truth was that she _wanted_ him to find her. The truth was that she was tired of reliving her own pain every time she showed him a bit her past in hopes that he would be terrified enough to prevent the future. The truth was that she was lonely, that she wanted to see someone face to face, to talk to another human being. To confront him. To tell him that she hated him instead of hiding like a coward. To find out if she did even hate him anymore.

That last part was perhaps what she feared the most to learn. Because if she didn't hate him, didn't retch at the thought of him like she once had, than she might not have the strength to kill him anymore. And when she thought that she hated _herself_. The thought that she might have grown soft, might have let her mind get so close to his that she sometimes couldn't separate the two, hung in front of her in ugly accusation.

And when it did she forced herself to remember. To see her parents lying dead on the floor, carpet soaked in red, red like his eyes as he stared at her and told her that he was trying to help her, talking with the same lips that had ordered her parents' death. Her hate would come back in fire-soaked resolve and she would remember why she was here. To stop that from happening. To stop _him._

He was the enemy. She had to confront him before she forgot that.

*******

It was so dark here… so empty. Remy probably should have expected as much. He hadn't experienced the future yet and as a result there was nothing available to fill it like his past. But he hadn't been prepared for the vacancy, the loneliness here. It was like a giant room meant to hold hundreds of laughing guests that had been abandoned to echoing possibilities. It was eerie and frightening in its way.

And it really was very big. The space went on and on as he followed the threat of light, pulling himself along it and leaving the excess behind. He wondered if the size was relative to the length of his future, wondered if the space devoted to the future would be smaller if he had been much older and closer to his death.

And he also wondered how he was going to find his way out of here. He imagined that there were a million tricks that a skilled psychic could use to mark their path. Unfortunately he was far from skilled, and the closest expert had been left long ago and locked out of his mind. He didn't doubt that she would eventually knock down his walls and come in after him. He hoped he had enough time before she did. Maybe his mental barriers would be strong enough to hold her for at least a little while.

He was starting to get used to this new body of his. At first moving had been awkward and strange, requiring specific thought and focused effort. It was easier now, more natural.

The string of light he was pulling through his hands had started to look different. It took him a moment to realize that it was no longer blue, but was looking more green now.

Maybe that meant something. Maybe that meant he was getting closer to wherever he was going.

*******

She looked down at the green wire of light that extended out from her form, watched it get taunt and then slacken a little… taunt and slack… taunt and slack. He was close. Very close.

She couldn't help the anxiety she felt. It was easy to hide in his mind, to exact total control over his life without ever having to explain herself. This was different.

But she still had power over him. She had to remember that. His life was still in her hands.

*******

He could feel it now. Exactly what "it" was, he wasn't sure, but it was like a buzz in the darkness around him. He wasn't sure how to interpret it, or what it meant. But suddenly he didn't feel so alone anymore, suddenly he didn't feel so empty. And he knew that wherever this trail lead, it was worth whatever sacrifice he was making now. Because the buzz was _familiar_, and he had the inexplicable feeling that ahead of him he would find something that would change him.

The buzz was getting louder.

*******

She shook out her psychic body, looked over it. It had been so long since she had been anything tangible. She wondered what it felt like, if she would even remember how to use a real body anymore. The green, glowing and translucent form that she embodied spread light into the darkness around her. She knew that to any human who'd never experienced life from this perspective, she was quite dazzling. But to her eyes she was a faded image and she remembered a time when she was much brighter in her psychic form, a time when she was more vivid and solid. A time when she didn't create the effect of a green mist slowly diffusing into the night.

He was close. Very close. The tension grew worse, because she had the horrible feeling that the next moments were her destiny. The future could either be born or destroyed, and it all depended on her.

*******

The glowing filaments had grown tight, the slack gone as he approached whatever anchored the other end. The blackness wasn't so dark anymore and there was a pale greenish glow to it now.

Ahead of him he could see that green glow thicken into a haze and in the middle of that haze he could see a figure. A feminine figure of green light.

He was here.

*******

He was here.

She could see him standing there, blue psychic form glowing like a star. Lighting flickered through him, the sign of an Omega class mutant. He looked strong, looked clean, looked pure.

Even here he was a being of deception, because she knew him, perhaps better than he knew himself. Not only did she know who he was, but she knew who he would become. And he was and would be far from clean and pure.

She gathered herself and stepped forward to close the distance between them.

It was time to create the future.

__

end Part 5 


	6. Part 6

****

Part 6

She was… amazing. Green mist swirled around a glowing interior, shaping out a curved female body that was cloaked in a certain fuzzy quality, as if the image were out of focus, but promised something so perfect if it could be seen in clarity. Her hair was long, down to the middle of her back, and he thought it was braided, but such details were hard to see. She seemed to pulse with life, seemed to radiate energy… and as his eyes followed the thread that he'd followed here, the glowing filament that originated in the back of his right hand, he saw that it led to her, straight to her chest, the place where he would image her heart to be.

He had seen her before. Never like this. Never so dazzling or incredible, but on a lesser, simpler scale. Even then she had been amazing, lit up with internal life on the desolate and empty Antarctican snowdrifts. She had appeared in a flash of light, burst into existence out of nowhere, and had offered him survival without ever saying a word_. But he was desperate, unwilling to resist when he knew that he could have if his mind had had a greater will. His will was gone, stripped away with the freezing cold along with his pride and confidence. He was a shell holding only a tiny fire of desire only strong enough to keep him walking and then, as he lay on the ground with this glowing green entity before him, only strong enough to keep him breathing. And he had no strength to protect himself anymore, and he let her in, his mental walls dissolved with his resolve. He felt her then, felt her offer of life, felt her dive into his brain and take a space there. Felt her side of the deal set in, her control, her ability to smite that last little flame that burned in him. He felt her threat, the sinking feeling that something bad had just happened, the realization that his life might never be his own again. And then he felt the darkness close_ _in._

He remembered. Later, when New Son had found him and when he was lying in bed, struck down by pneumonia, he had attributed the event to hallucination. Granted, he had lived when he should have died. Granted, there was a unnatural vitality right after he woke up that allowed him to venture into the Savage Lands and do New Son a favor before he started to feel the effects of his illness… but he was a mutant. Strange things happened regularly to people like him.

But here she was again. Real. Or as real as things could seem on this plane of existence. And she had been here in his mind all this time.

*******

They were so close now. She could reach out and touch him should she wish to do so, complete the joining of their minds and open herself to him. It was what she had to do to give him the dreams, to let him violate her, take memories from her mind and experience them with her all over again. But she wasn't going to let that happen now. She had already sacrificed in that way. Now it was time to try something different.

They had been quiet so far. Now she spoke. "Do you know who I am?" Her voice sounded like the whisper of the wind, echoing and powerful to her own ears, matching the effect she desired.

He looked taken aback, as if he expected the scenario to play out like a silent movie. It took him a moment before he answered: "Y' de femme dat saved m' life in Antarctica."

She gazed at him, considering her response. "I'm the key to preventing the future."

It was his turn to stare at her now. She could feel his thoughts turning through his head, even if she couldn't read them exactly from this distance. He decided to follow the subject she had set, instead of pursuing the multitude of other questions she knew he had. "Why? What's so bad about the future?"

"You are. The Witness is."

His eyes widened at the name, the same name she knew had haunted his dreams for nights at a time. His features hardened, blue steel, his eyes glowing a bright midnight. "Who are you?"

"I believe I answered that already."

"Non, you didn't."

Not so fast, he wouldn't take control of this conversation that easily. She was the dominant one here, and it would remain that way. She didn't answer, only stood, staring stoically.

He didn't crack, but reconsidered his approach. "Have you been de one giving me de dreams?"

She smiled, cold and humorless. "Why, yes. Did you enjoy them?"

"An' de visions about de nanos and Sinister a while ago?"

She couldn't help commending him on making the connection in his mind. He wasn't completely stupid, only heartless. "That was also my work."

A pause. The gears in his head were turning again. "What is your connection with Sinister?"

Her head bent to the side and she was unable to prevent the chuckle that escaped her lips. "I have no connection with Sinister. I simply took the fears in your mind and made them into something. I knew he was dangerous." She knew he had caused something bad in the past, had had a hand in creating the future she lived in, if not his exact role. So she had tried to keep Remy afraid of him, to make sure Remy wouldn't aid him in causing more pain. Just like she was doing now with New Son.

He didn't look like he believed her. She didn't care.

"Den why do you have some sort of connection to de scar of Sinister's symbol on m' hand?" He gestured with his head, eyes narrowed and suspicious, at the upraised limb, the line of light extending out. She resisted the temptation to look down at her chest, to the place where it reached her.

"To make you paranoid." She smiled another cold smile, knowing he didn't understand. Knowing that he would try to find all different kinds of explanations for her use of the symbol when the real reason was only because she knew the effect it would have on him. The more afraid he was, the better. The less likely it would be that he would have the confidence or presence of mind to do damage to other people.

"Do you know the power I have over you?" she continued. She felt his reaction to that remark, his resistance. "Do you know that the only reason you are alive is because I choose to let you live? Let me tell you about the future—"

He cut her off. He had the nerve to cut her off. "De way I see it, is dat you are in _my_ mind and dat I never gave you permission to set up your own personal Holiday Inn here. You may have saved m' life in Antarctica, but dat don' give you rights to be in m' head."

"Oh yes is does," she said. "You don't seem to understand. I could have easily killed you after you did half the job blowing up Sinister's lab. Your life is in my hands. I've given it back to you more than once, and I can take it away at will. You'll listen to me, boy, if you value your existence. Trust me, the future will be better for it."

He was seething; she could see it, lightning bolting out of his body at strange angles, magnifying his tight stance. He didn't like being told he was helpless. Hated it even more because part of him believed it. And he felt violated. Just like she had had to feel so many times before because of him. He deserved what he got. She could feel the wells of anxiety/fear/distrust/indignant anger running through him. "An' how do you know s' much about de future?" he said with words cut of diamond, brows low and angled.

"I know because I lived it."

And then she stepped forward and touched him, because she knew that was the only way to drive the point home, to break through the resistance of his stubbornness and give reality to his situation. It didn't matter how much she didn't want to… her purpose went beyond her, and she would continue to give of herself until the goal was reached. She felt the connection between them flair open, felt his surprise and recoil as deeply as if it were her own… and in fact it was as they became one just long enough for her to allow him to relive a memory in her body.

__

She was standing in a graveyard. Rolling hills of dirt spread out at her feet as far as her eyes could see. Small stones stood at some of the graves, but many of the piles of sand were unmarked, not even given enough attention to be decorated with flowers, dignified with a few measly strands of grass. It was a wasteland. Nothing grew here, nothing lived, and as she looked up she could barely believe the magnitude of this place, could barely believe that the unnamed soldiers could go on for miles until the fog of pollution on the horizon faded them into nothing.

She remembered something somebody had told her once, a tall dark man with an M-shaped scar over one of his eyes. He had said: "And after all that they went through, the only time humans and mutants were ever really united was in death, in the miles of unmarked graves, side by side. It seems ironic really. Xavier fought to bring humans and mutants together all his life, and it is only when he lost, that his goal was accomplished." She hadn't really understood what he had meant until she had come here, until she had seen how one grave was like another, whether it held human or mutant, they were equals. She wanted to ask him now more about what he knew about the past, about Xavier and his X-Men, but he was gone. According to her mentor, he had gone back in time to try and stop the war from happening. 

Apparently he had failed. 

The sky was dark, but then, she couldn't remember when it hadn't been. Her parents used to tell her stories as a child about when the skies were clear and blue, stories they had heard from their own parents about a time before the war. Before the explosions and soot and debris had filled the skies with a fine black powder that made everything dirty, even the sunlight that managed to shine through.

There was a noise behind her, a shuffling of feet, and she turned quickly, already considering several defenses/attacks to use should the source of the noise be a threat. Her mentor had taught her well.

The source was indeed a threat. One of the greatest of all, and one she didn't even have the ability to fight. It was the Witness, and he was staring off in the distance, at the miles of gravestones, simplified to only a lonely stone on each pile, that stood as solemn statues all around. His eyes were glowing, something she had come to identify with his feeling some extreme emotion, and they were glazed over, as if he were living somewhen else at the moment. His wrinkling face looked tired, exhausted actually. She'd never seen that in him before, had only seen the hardness, the lack of human emotion.

His gaze focused on the present and caught her looking at him and then the exhaustion was gone. The man she hated was back and she wondered if she had only been imagining the rest.

She decided to be bold. Maybe it was the dead giving her strength, pleading with her to accuse him, giving her insight into what his relation to them was. "It's your fault they're dead, isn't it?" No kindness, only a statement of fact. She knew somehow that it was true even before she said it.

His face hardened then, even more than usual, and he looked into her eyes directly with his glowing terrible ones and said one word: "Oui."

*******

The room was bright and it hurt his eyes. He blinked a few times against the white blur he saw. It took him a few teary seconds to realize that he was staring at a ceiling.

It took him a few more seconds to realize that he was in the real world again. The misty ghost girl was gone now, except for a thin wispy shadow that he could feel across the edges of his mind.

He was in the medlab. His eyes searched the sterile looking room, finding the piles of machinery and supplies that had recently been installed. There were faces, staring over him, and looking/feeling relieved and angry.

Jean was there, and Scott, and Hank.

They were talking he realized, probably to him, and he actually had to put an effort into hearing them, into arranging their voice patterns into words and sentences and ideas, as if oral language was something foreign to him that he was unaccustomed to.

"—you hear me?" Jean was saying. "Focus on the words, piece it all together… Remy? Answer me…" she sounded concerned.

He wondered if maybe that meant he should be too. His body felt awkward, like he didn't belong in it.

"I… hear… y'" He put the words in sequence with more brainpower than he'd imagined it should take. His brain was clouded with the emotions that filled the room around him, that filled the mansion, all jumbled together in his empathic sense like a tangled ball of string. He could feel himself falling into it all, sliding down into a form that would make him one with those emotions, that would put them on the same plane as him so that he could get a closer look.

Sliding… deeper… deeper. *Remy!* She was in his mind, deep in his mind to be able to reach him here. Too deep… and he realized he had let his defenses slide.

And then the world came into sharp focus as he shut her out and everything else out with strong stiff walls.

He saw instead of felt the concern on Hank, Scott and Jean's faces. Blinking a few times, he started to feel the burning headache behind his eyes that must have been waiting there for him to wake up. His hand came to his head as he slowly sat up on the bed he had been laying on.

"Remy? Are you back with us now?" Scott asked with the paternal concern of a leader that the man must have admired in Xavier so many times before.

Remy closed his eyes, squinting at the pain. His right arm hurt. He must have been laying on it wrong. "Unfortunately," he mumbled.

Hank was already walking around him doing a preliminary check. Remy flinched away from the doctor's furry hands but didn't offer too much resistance. "Well, it seems that you are getting that after-training check-up Mr. Summers here has ordered anyway," Hank commented as he shone a bright light in Remy's eye.

Remy blinked away, tearing because of his heightened sensitivity to light. "Ow, watch it wit' dat t'ing furball. Well, don' I feel lucky." He was starting to put his thoughts in order, to remember what had happened. He was starting to remember how much trouble he was really in.

"You should." Scott managed to catch his eye and hold his gaze, an uncanny ability of his considering the big ruby visor over half his face. "If it weren't for Jean pulling you back you might not be back."

Remy didn't say anything. He wasn't exactly sure what to say, and he figured anything smart would just make things worse considering his situation. 

Scott seemed to be waiting for a reply, or maybe an agreement. When nothing came he took it to mean that Remy didn't care. "Doesn't that bother you?" He was looking for a connection, a way to reach him, and Remy knew it.

"Should it?" He hated when people tried to do that, to force some kind of link, as if they could understand who he was and communicate with him as a peer. But nobody could understand; that was the circumstance of his nature. Even he didn't understand half of the time. He knew it was the wrong thing to say, but it was the first and only answer that came to mind that he was willing to give.

For a moment there was a flash of frustration and suppressed anger on Scott's face, and then it was gone. "Tell me what happened?" His tone was coaxing, without a trace of the emotion that had just disappeared.

Memories were coming back on him now, clear, yet with that dream-like quality that so deftly eludes explanation. He could see her standing there—bright and green and misty in the black darkness that hung around her in a cloud of mystery. And he could remember the feel of her hate burning him as he shared every emotion with her. There was her hand reaching out to touch him, the sudden sense that he was in someone else's body… then the graveyard, him living it as if it were real, seeing the Witness. 

There was the fear. Insensitive and sterile, sitting in a knot in his throat.

And Scott must have seen it. They all must have seen it. "Remy?" he called gently.

Remy focused on his face, making sure his expression was appropriate again, indifferent, slightly annoyed. "What?"

"What happened? Jean said that she was talking to you but communication suddenly broke off, and when she tried to look for you, you were deep in your mind with an armory of walls around you."

Hank gestured for him to take his shirt off, and he did. The stethoscope was cold and he flinched back. He wasn't sure exactly how he was going to answer yet. He knew he couldn't tell the truth, not until he knew more about who the ghost femme was, or what her connection to him could be. He had the unnerving sense that he had unwillingly made a deal with the devil, and he needed to find out more, especially since the Witness was involved. But he needed the freedom to do it on his own, without the X-Men hanging over his personal life.

And so the alternative was to lie. And start the web of deception all over again after he had come back from Antarctica where he was condemned for hiding the truth the first time. He'd begin all over again, with the distancing of himself and the dishonesty and the guilt of not being completely truthful with those that he knew trusted him. But trust was a strong word. Maybe they would never really trust him again anyway. Maybe it was too late and it really didn't matter so much. Maybe they expected him to lie.

But did he expect himself to lie? Somehow along the way, his subconscious had made a pledge without him knowing it, to do things right this time.

Too bad his subconscious was going to have to be disappointed. Sacrifices had to be made. And as always, his conscience was one of the first to go. There were other instincts that he owed his life to. His conscience had never saved him before. "I made a wrong turn." It was the truth technically, but he knew the connotation was the he had made a mistake. He had known where he was going all along.

"You mean you didn't come back the way you came to the outside world, like I told you?" Jean asked, tilting her head. Red hair fell over her shoulders.

"Non." He hoped they would stop asking questions, before the half-truths turned into complete and undeniable falsities.

"Where did you go then?"

Why couldn't it ever be easy? Her green eyes implored him to answer. He looked away, distracting himself with the act of putting his shirt back on. Hank seemed to be done finally, and the furry doctor stepped back to give him some space to maneuver. "Don' remember," he mumbled, shaking his head. "Jus' got lost." He wasn't sure how convincing he was being, but even if his acting was failing him now, they would assume that he didn't want to talk about it, that he had seen some ugly things in his mind that he didn't want to share. It fit with what they knew of him and it really wasn't too far from the truth. Of course they would never guess the details and magnitude of it.

Jean frowned, not looking very satisfied with his answer, but he figured she knew that she wasn't going to get anything else out of him because she didn't question him further.

Scott must not have been as perceptive. Or maybe he was just stubborn. "Remy, how about we have lunch together tomorrow. A casual thing, get some time to talk. There are a lot of things I have been meaning to ask you." The man did a good job of saying it without making the appointment sound like a death sentence. He must have felt some conversational time between them was his duty as a leader or something, because Remy knew the man wasn't particularly fond of him. Considering the amount of grief he'd caused, he didn't blame him.

It was an offer he figured he wasn't at liberty to refuse. "Sure, Scotty." He smiled, knowing it probably looked slightly evil.

"Good. We'll talk about this more tomorrow. Hank, does everything check out?"

"He's as healthy as a Cajun swamp rat."

"Then you're free to go back to your room and get some sleep."

Remy nodded and was out of there as soon as he could jump off the bed and walk out the door. 

He really hated medlabs.

*******

The screen of the laptop glowed softly in the dark room, him leaning carefully over it so that a dim light was cast across his face. There was the steady sound of the clicking keys as his fingers flew over them, followed by an indignant beep. Another click, another beep. He sighed heavily and leaned back on the headboard of his bed. Gently, he massaged his head.

He was getting nowhere with the disk that Jake Jr. had given him, and he was running out of time. 

The clock glowed the numbers 9:00 happily. He wondered why it always seemed to be so overjoyed, no matter what the time was, whether it be two in the morning or three in the afternoon, it always shone brightly. Whatever it was on to make it that way, he wanted some.

A deep sigh. Another beep. This was pointless. He wasn't going to find out what was on the disk before he had to deliver it tonight to this Schecher man.

He leaned back on his bed and laid down, his laptop still on his lap. _And then what, Remy? What you gonna do if you find out it be somet'ing nasty New Son's got planned? You never doubted dat it would be somet'ing illegal and dat never stopped you before. You gonna play hero an' risk your hide against New Son's henchmen? Jus' cuz of some ghost of de future tryin' to scare you?_

But it was working. Because whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was terrified.

He'd spent the entire day "sleeping". Lights off, door closed, not leaving the room even for dinner. What sleeping really meant was that he was calling any connection he could find, searching for information on this Congressman he was supposed to deliver the disk to all over the internet, and coming just short of begging his dad to find something, anything, on New Son, when there was nothing to be found except for petty drug deals, small weapons exchanges, and other crime syndicate types of stuff. Nothing that seemed to have any link to Congressman Schecher, unless he was a drug dealer in hiding.

Remy doubted that. The man had no outstanding record. Except that he was having some financial problems due to a divorce and an agitated soon-to-be-ex-spouse charging him with domestic violence, but nothing had been proven and it might have just been his wife looking to get some money and a way out of the marriage.

Remy sat up again, sliding his finger across the mouse sensor and maximizing the internet browser window on his computer. A news page came up, changing the light patterns across his face. He blinked, the brightness hurting his eyes, especially in comparison to the dark room, but he forced them to adjust and skim the page. There were assorted, uninteresting articles, something about no additional missing children reported in Michigan, a man found dead in a New York City alleyway, a completely inaccurate article about mutant criminals, blah, blah, blah… and there! There, at the bottom of the page was the article his search engine was targeting. It was about mutant registration. Apparently, if everyone voted the way they said they would, they would be one vote short of the majority needed to get the bill passed. There were still three Congressmen on the fence, who hadn't made any decisions as to which side they were going to take. Congressman Schecher was one of them.

And that meant absolutely nothing. From what he'd managed to gather on New Son's profile, the crime boss had never been interested in politics, only money-making activities. And even if Mutant Registration meant something to him, he was a mutant and would no doubt try to influence things so that it would not pass. Nothing wrong with that. If the reason for all this was just to sway the Congressman's opinion to favor mutants, then all the better.

His hands came up to massage his head and he closed his eyes. He didn't know what was what anymore. And he was thoroughly convinced that he had gone certifiably crazy. Opening his eyes and deciding to try to copy the disk one more time, he bent over the keyboard and let his hands do what was natural.

This time the beep was long and derisive.

So that was that. He wasn't going to get anymore information about this thing. He was going to have to work with what he had.

The clock was now gaily announcing that it was 9:15.

He closed down his laptop and popped out the disk, dropped it into a new envelope and sealed it with some water from an unopened bottle on his dresser. And then he began to get dressed: all black bodysuit, traditional trenchcoat, extra cards and the typical thieving picks and tools.

It was time for him to go.

__

finis Part 6


	7. Part 7

****

Part 7

He dropped the motorcycle off at a local bar about a mile away from the house. He jogged the rest of the way there, the envelope tucked away into his pocket, the disk inside.

It was a crisp night, and the road was slick with ice. No cars passed him as he approached the quiet rich neighborhood on the fringes of any significant town. His watch read 11:00pm. He wondered if the Congressman would be sleeping.

He stopped jogging as he approached the first houses and began walking, trying to look casual, just in case somebody happened to look out their window and think he seemed suspicious running through their streets at night.

The lawns were huge, endless and green under the light coating of snow. He wondered what type of grass it was that could live in subfreezing temperatures. The houses matched the land around them, overdone and soaked in grandeur. Most of the families that lived in them were probably no more than four or five people, maybe even just two. He wondered what they needed with 6 bedrooms, two kitchens, 3 bathrooms, and multiple living rooms/dens/entertainment rooms. And he'd bet that not a single one of them realized what it was they had or how grateful they should be.

Schecher was house number six, a blue mansion with white trim and brick embellishments wherever room could be found for them. Remy didn't particularly care for the design. It looked expensive, but lacked a sense of style, like it was trying too hard to look good. He wandered up the long, brick, driveway, sticking to the shadows and moving quickly. There was one light on in the house, on the bottom of the three floors and all the way in the corner to the left. It looked so small in the giant home, and he got the feeling that it was meant to be that way—separate, almost forgotten, a hide-away.

He made it to the end of the driveway. Finally. He'd seen many expensive homes and they all seemed to pride themselves on how long a driveway they had, as if the length the cars had to go to get to the home indicated its worth. This house was no exception.

Slipping behind some bushes, he wandered around to the back. There were trees lining the edge of the property in all directions, which was perfect. He didn't need to worry about witnesses from other homes. 

There were bushes following the line of the house's base and he crept along them, searching for an open window. The blinds were closed and curtains drawn on every one of them, and he wished that for once people wouldn't be so concerned with privacy. It would make his job much easier to know what to expect before he jumped headlong into a room. Literally.

He chose a window, one that had been left open just slightly and yanked it the rest of the way up. A screen sat behind that, but a tiny burst of kinetic energy later it was gone. Somebody had once told him, a fellow thief, that to use your mutant power on a job was cheating. Remy had laughed loudly in reply.

As if there were rules in the game. There never were, and never would be. Such was life. Maybe that was what made it so exhilarating, the greatest gamble of all.

Stepping back a few feet from the wall, he gathered himself, mind and body. His senses came alive, and he knew that there was no movement save the blowing of the curtains on the other side of that gaping hole, that beckoned for him to enter like some sultry beast. There was only one person in the house that he could sense, Congressman Schecher, and the man was deeply focused on something Remy was not able to identify. He gave one last look around and then Remy leaned back and sprang forward diving through the open window…

…And Gambit landed in the room on the other side, rolling once to smooth and slow his momentum before coming to his feet in a defensive stance. Just in front of him stood a large pool table that he had barely missed crashing into. He looked down at it. The balls were scattered about, as if somebody had been playing a game and had suddenly decided to stop. A quick glance around the room took in the wet bar in the corner, the couch along one wall, the stereo and speakers rigged throughout. Nothing of interest. Silently, he walked around the pool table and came to the open door at the opposite wall.

The hall on the other side both felt and was empty, and he began to wander down it to the left, away from the Congressman and his one lit room. He checked every open space he came to, and then, unsatisfied, he went the other direction down the hall. And after that he searched the two floors above.

Somewhere, there had to be a file room where this Congressman kept his records.

*******

There was a file room, and it was on the second floor. It had taken almost fifteen minutes to find it, but then he had come across a locked door and he knew something important must be on the other side.

The lock was a joke. The door might as well have been left wide open.

And so here he was, searching though a lifetime of personal files, hoping to find anything—something, to sedate the uneasy feeling running rampart in his chest and stomach. There wasn't too much to find. There were some receipts for large sums of money given to Schecher for anonymous tasks that were most likely bribes, but Gambit wasn't too surprised by that. Corruption wasn't all that uncommon in politics. But the man's sins didn't seem to go much deeper than that. No criminal activity more serious than bribes that he could find—no accusations for serious criminal activity even.

And then he came to a file cabinet filled with financial information. The most interesting by far was the folder for the present time period. And he finally knew what might be motivating this politician to risk his reputation and shake hands with the devil. He was out of money. Completely and totally broke. He was already in the beginning stages of filing bankruptcy.

The lawyers, trial expenses, and divorce papers were what had done it. The folder was overflowing with bills, with outstanding expenses demanding him to pay up. A glance over the folders from previous years showed that he had had some trouble in the past financially, but this had put him over the edge. And it had been Gambit's experience that wealthy men whose financial security was being threatened could get quite desperate.

Gambit had started to think that this might be some kind of information exchange, judging by the disk he was to deliver and Schecher's lack of a crime record before this recent domestic violence charge, which, even if it was true, didn't indicate that he had any history of involvement with organized crime syndicates, like New Son's. But now he doubted that. This whole mess with his wife had put the Congressman in more trouble than Gambit had realized. Schecher wasn't in this to get information. He was in this to get money. Another bribe.

But for what?

Gambit looked around at the stacks of unexplored file cabinets. The Congressman obviously had a fetish for hard copies. He could be here all year trying to find an answer to that question.

*******

She'd first seen New Son's name in a scrapbook of newspaper articles from prewar times. The scrapbook had belonged to the man with the M-shaped scar and he had shown it to her at the same time that he had told her about the graves. He'd spent a lot of time searching for articles on the past and had managed to come up with only a few measly scraps of paper. One of them was a New York newspaper dated November 25th, 2001. All it really was was a piece of a headline, most of it ripped off and lost in the years of war that had come after it, but two words could be made out clearly, and they were: New Son. She hadn't known what it meant then, whether good or bad, and the man with the scar hadn't seemed able to offer her too much more information, but she had been intrigued.

And then, seeing her interest, the man had told her that he thought the date of that newspaper was the date that had brought a start to it all. He wasn't sure of details, but something that had happened on that Sunday had triggered the events that led to the war. When she'd asked him how he knew, he just shook his head and said that it was a rumor he'd heard, one piece of history that had been passed down through word of mouth, and something just kept telling him to believe it.

She'd figured that when solid facts were so scarce, rumor was all you had left.

Nevertheless, it was a mystery, and it was begging to be solved. If that newspaper really was an artifact from the beginning of it all, then maybe New Son had been involved in the cataclysmic event that had pushed humans and mutants to fight. She'd had this feeling that if she could just find out what it all meant, if she could just discover who or what New Son was, she'd have a much clearer picture of the events that had led up to the Great War. It was a small thread to hang on, but she had had nothing else, and so she had clung to it, desperately. There had to be a reason for it all, for her life, and for the world she lived in. She'd needed to find it, to pinpoint it and point her finger and say, "There you are." And here she had been given a possible hope for an explanation.

So many people had died, so many suffered, and nobody could even remember what had started it all. History had been lost and destroyed, along with everything else in the past fifty years with anybody old enough to remember already dead.

Except for one person, she had realized. And that was the Witness.

*******

The problem was that there was just so much information to go through. He had no way of knowing if somewhere, in the back of some file cabinet, in the corner of the room, there were the answers he searched for. If there was some connection to New Son to be found, and it was somewhere in this room, it probably would be somewhat hidden, and so he looked in all the less obvious places first—the file drawers close to the floor, the ones high up and barely in reach, the ones lost in the depths of the room.

But all his searching had yielded nothing more than his initial discoveries.

There was a table in the room covered with papers not yet filed. Among them were a few scattered letters urging Schecher to vote one way or the other on Mutant Registration, piled upon letters trying to sway him on other scattered upcoming votes. Gambit imagined he must get hundreds of these in a week, all imploring him to choose the right side. He wondered how many, if any, Schecher actually read. He picked one up randomly, fully gloved hands gripping the paper gently. It was from a Dr. McCoy asking Congressman Schecher to consider the injustice of such an act as Mutant Registration. Gambit smirked in the dark room. He wondered if this McCoy was coated in blue fur, or if he was just another who happened to have the same name and view.

Something in the back of his mind flared to life and he froze suddenly, feeling about with every sense he had.

Schecher was moving.

And he was coming here.

*******

The second time she had heard New Son's name had been from the Witness himself. She had been getting older, growing out of her fearful younger years and starting to learn that she really did have nothing to lose. He had already taken everything that mattered, and she didn't value her life all that much.

And so she'd started to confront the Witness, in little spurts, to challenge him. 

The funny thing was, he seemed to be pleased when she did it, like he'd expected her to do so eventually, and was satisfied that she had finally reached that point.

She couldn't disappoint him, now could she? He'd get what he wanted. He would definitely get what he wanted.

She'd snuck into his chambers once, thinking she could get into his room when he was not around and search his stuff. She'd seen him leave the building where his underground quarters were, had watched him get into a car with some men and drive away, so she'd expected that the room would be unoccupied when she got there.

__

Only it wasn't, because he was standing behind the door as she entered to leap around and grab her from behind, a glowing card pressed to her neck where he held her.

He was completely silent. She couldn't even hear him breathe. And there was no scent to his body. She wondered if he was even real.

"Why did you come here?" he asked in a low voice. There were the chills that skittered up and down her spine, which were always there when he spoke to her. She ignored them.

"Because I could," she replied.

She thought she heard him chuckle in the dim and empty room. "You would risk your life because you could? Dat dere is de kind of attitude that will get you killed."

"Like my parents?" Her voice was a snarl. Her hate gave her bravery.

"I'd had higher aspirations for you than dat," he said coldly, a strange twist to the words that she couldn't interpret.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

He smirked, barely visible in the corner of her vision. "Why did y' come here?"

"I thought I answered that question already."

"You thought wrong. You had a reason."

She could feel herself sweating, held so close to his body. She could barely keep from gagging. "Can't you just mind rape me if you want to know so bad?" She'd been told he could read minds, if it was true, it explained a lot about past conversations.

"Perhaps. Is dat an invitation?"

She shivered uncontrollably at the thought. He laughed.

"I have questions. I came to find answers."

He pulled her a little tighter and whispered in her ear, "Then, cherie, I will answer one of your questions, but first you must get free."

She looked over her shoulder just enough to see his glowing eyes as the card he was holding fizzled out and dropped to the floor so that it was only his strength keeping her where she was. She reached forward and slammed her elbow back into his stomach. The blow hit a wall of muscle, tight and prepared for such an attack. There was no affect. So then she tried to hit him lower, but there was armor to protect that. She even tried stepping on his foot, but every time he pulled it away before she could.

She realized that his physical advantage was too much for her. Biting was her last resort and though she finally managed to draw blood through his gloves, he didn't let go.

There was no where to turn… except to her mind. She was a mutant, born with an ability to enter other people's heads with her psionic form and stay there for long periods of time—almost like a parasite, but self-sustaining. He must not have been expecting her attack, or maybe she was just that fast and powerful mentally, but she shot into his mind beneath his walls and came out on the other side into something similar to a warzone. There was so much there, so many conflicting memories all crossing and mixing—futures mingling with pasts, imaginings with realities. She almost became so dizzy that she fell right back out to her own body, but she held on, just barely, long enough to grab a small cluster of memories, clumped together in the scattered world she was in. She gripped them, wrapping herself around them until they were forced into a little ball. And then he was there, knocking her out of his mind with such a force that her physical body was pushed to the floor as her psionic form came crashing back home.

He stared at her, fiery shock in his eyes.

And she smiled, because he was standing two feet away from her and she was sitting on the ground completely free.

"Now, about my question," she said. "I want to know who New Son was."

He recovered quickly, tilting his head to regard the request. After a pause: "New Son was trouble. He's de reason why we are all here."

More than that he wouldn't tell her. But he promised she would find out when the time was right.

*******

He was standing in the shadows, out of view when Schecher entered the room. The man reached up to switch on the lights… his hand never made it there.

The card flew out of Gambit's left hand with practiced precision, hitting the light switch and shorting it out in a burst of sparks and light.

And then they were standing in the darkness a few feet away, the Congressman's eyes suddenly skittering across the room frantically and he was looking like he was about to run. He came across Gambit's ruby gaze in the corner. He froze.

"Who's there?" he called, trying to put authority into his voice but failing.

Gambit stepped forward, staying just out of the column of dim light cast by the one window on the end of the rather long, rectangular room. "You sure you wanna ask dat question?"

The Congressman didn't answer. In the dark Gambit could make out his features, somewhat less spectacular than they appeared in the newspapers. He had a solid sense of German blood in him, a big, strong looking man, deep blue eyes, thinning and whitening blond hair. But instead of looking composed and solid, he looked unsure, unsteady… lost. He looked scared. He looked like a man collapsing under the pressure of everything around him and afraid that the next moment might bring the last straw that would break his back. Even without his empathy telling him so, Gambit would have known it.

"I been sent by my employer to give you something. Do you know who m' employer is?" 

The Congressman stared into the shadows for a second, and suddenly he didn't look on the verge of running away anymore. "New Son," he breathed, as if the name offered the key to life. He no longer had the appearance of a deer in headlights. There was a new confidence in him, driven by greed?, hope?, knowledge?

"Very good. And do you know what New Son wants wit' you?" Now was his chance to get some more information, even if information could be a very dangerous thing to have. Something was telling him he needed it this time, no matter what the risks. Maybe it was the ghost in his head. Maybe it was himself.

The Congressman squinted his tired eyes, puffy and offset by large bags. "You _are_ the messenger, right?" He sounded suspicious.

Gambit pulled the disk out into his hand, sealed in the old envelope again with new glue. He held it there in the folds of his trench coat, fingers bent around it as if he could suck out the answers he felt so much like he needed.

"Dat would be me," he confirmed, trying to sound like he shouldn't have to explain himself.

"I was told not to discuss the details with you. I was promised that you would be a third-party member who knew nothing, to protect my privacy. Has New Son changed the parameters of my deal?" The fear was gone; the politician was there.

Gambit gripped the disk tighter. There was nothing he could do. New Son had planned everything perfectly. "No, de deal remains."

Schecher nodded, a few strands of his disheveled hair falling even more out of place. "Good. Then, I believe you have a message for me."

He looked down at the paper envelope in his hands. As much as he hated it, he had no way out here. If he kept it, just left right now without doing his job, both New Son and the Schecher would be after him for whatever that disk held. He was tired of running. He'd been doing it his whole life, from his past, from his enemies, from himself. All he had to do was hand over that disk and it would be over. There was no reason not to. No reason to listen to just another ghost tormenting him in his mind. He'd be stupid to.

Switching his grip on the weighted envelope, he got ready to flip it through the air into Schecher's outstretched hand. It left his fingertips…

******

She couldn't let it happen. She didn't know why, but she couldn't. Maybe she was paranoid, but it didn't matter. New Son was trouble and any deal he was involved with also meant trouble. She had to stop this, even if there was no real evidence to support that she should. She didn't give everything just to come back here and take the chance that it would all happen again.

She couldn't let her parents die again. Couldn't let the billions of graves be built again.

Maybe this was the key to the future. If it was, she didn't know exactly how, but she wasn't going to take the chance that that door be opened.

In the darkness of a dormant corner of a mind, she gathered herself together, focusing herself into a clarity that was so hard for her to reach now. The mist faded and she was a sharp image, powerful, determined. Grabbing the rope of light that leapt out of her heart, she pulled herself forward, leaving the safety of emptiness…

*******

The envelope arced upwards, through the air, halfway to the destination of its flight. Gambit watched it, relieved now that the decision had finally been made…

*******

She was coming up behind him, behind the center of his consciousness where he stood, astral form tied into the 'real' world, unaware of her footsteps as she came closer. She walked around him once, his eyes glazed as staring emptily, his blue, brilliant body still, his focus not here, but somewhere else. She imagined that if she were loud enough, obtuse enough, he would sense her, notice her presence. But she knew him enough that she could blend in with the surroundings, that she could become him… which is what she would do.

She stood in front of him, facing that vacant and handsome face. And then she reached back and punched him with all her strength. He went down, without ever knowing what had hit him.

Nothing had ever felt so good in her entire life.

And then she was in control and she was Gambit, free to do things right.

*******

Gambit lunged forward, grabbing the disk the moment before it touched Schecher's outstretched and waiting palm. His eyes shot up in shocked anger. "What's this?" he demanded.

Gambit backed away. "I don't think we'll be making any deals tonight," she said.

Turning, she headed for the window, charging some cards in her hand to clear the glass out of her way. Schecher was yelling behind her but she ignored it, knowing that there was nothing he could do because she was in control…

*******

Remy blinked, groggy and disoriented. His vision cleared to reveal a foreign world, and as he slowly got up and looked at the lightning flickering across his bluish glass body, he realized that he was on the astral plane. He heard whispers all around him, filling what he perceived to be a room—a junction point, with innumerable doors and open passageways extending out of it. The voices seemed to be coming from them, converging here, and he knew that this was the center of his mind, where the commands that controlled his whole body were given.

And looking up, he saw who was in the center of the room, doing the commanding.

She stood there, sharp emerald body contrasting with the ambiguous shapes of faded colors merging and flowing along the walls and passages around them. Her face was drawn in concentration, tight and distant and he wondered if she was even aware of his presence here.

He knew he had to fight for his control back, and there was the stab of anger and fear that accompanied knowing that she had had the indignation to take over his body and that she could now do whatever she wanted in the real world.

Collecting himself, sharpening his image by gathering all his mental powers around himself, coiling them tighter and tighter like Jean had showed him to do, he charged headlong into his opponent.

He never made it to her.

A wall of mental force or will or something he couldn't understand rammed into him before he could come close, knocking him back on his illusionary butt and dazing him for a perceived moment.

Determined, angered, and enraged, he tried again. His butt got another beating.

And this time he decided to stop and think. Maybe she could feel his attacks and was blocking him somehow, maybe she wasn't as oblivious to this plane of existence as he thought.

Maybe he needed to be more subtle.

Standing again, he gripped the wire of light extending out of his right hand, held his arm up to about the level of her neck and circled her still form, carefully keeping the distance between them.

After two circuits he pulled. At first she didn't seem to respond to the wire taunt around her neck and slowly choking her, but then, all at once, she was animated, pulled into the psionic plane by her shock, and grabbing senselessly for her throat. He used her distraction, coming behind her and holding both her and the wire tight, before she could unwind herself, and as she slowly grew limp and weak in his arms, he projected a wind of thought to force her back to the corner of his mind where she had come from. He wasn't exactly sure how he did it, but it happened somehow and then she was gone and he was ready to grab his consciousness by the reins and retake his control…

*******

He woke up on the floor, the fuzzy carpet scratching against his 5 o'clock shadow, his right arm spasming violently and screaming out in pain. His instincts told him to get up quickly and he did, ignoring all his body's protests, and coming up into a defensive stance.

Schecher glanced at him strangely, backing away with the envelope Gambit had dropped in his hand. "You are one crazy, confused, mutant. I think New Son should be more careful who he hires." Somehow, he'd gotten hold of a gun, and he was pointing it at Gambit's chest. "Now, leave. Your job is done."

Gambit might have possessed superior agility, but he wasn't invincible. He couldn't dodge bullets from point-blank range.

Knowing there was no other way, he turned to the window, already broken behind him, and gracefully vaulted over a file cabinet to land in the frost-dampened grass outside.

Fully aware that he must be as insane as Schecher thought he was.

*******

There was empty forest behind the houses, the expensive homes too pompous and clickish to be invaded by another row of buildings within view of the lush backyards and Victorian style windows. He perceived the forest as a haven, vaulting over the fence circling Schecher's expansive pristine gardens, relying on colorful bushes and hardy plants to take the place of the flowers killed off by the first frost. The ground was slippery and his arm was throbbing and his journey from one side of the fence to the other wasn't as graceful as he'd have liked, but there was little left in him to care for more than a moment.

He moved quickly, quietly, always in the shadows cast by the hazy moon, breathing steadily the crisp, cold air that bit at his nose and ears, stung his eyes.

Where was he going? He wasn't sure. The first lines of trees opened to him, and soon he was surrounded by the protection of statues of bark rising above him and branching out to net out the sky and the moon and anything else that might dare invade.

He immediately felt safer, if just for the solace that he was hidden, kept away from the eyes of politicians in bathrobes and millionaires in sleeping caps. Hidden? Never, never truly hidden.

The walls were high in his mind, desperately strong. He couldn't even feel her verdant touch.

Somehow he ended up back on the road where his bike was. He didn't remember choosing it as a destination, but he was moving mindlessly, foggily, stunned, and instinct was controlling his actions. He automatically found the machine in the bushes where he had left it, methodically pulled it back to the road, thoughtlessly mounted it and started it up.

And then the wind was blowing across his face, tickling the fuzz of his hair, chilling his bones as much as anything could chill ice, while his foot slowly pressed farther and farther down on the accelerator and the surrounding bushes and trees and dirt road and small towns became an indistinct blur. His trench coat blew up behind him, flying straight back away from his black body suit and he thought he must be a sight to see as he recklessly pulled up into a wheely at insane speeds.

He slowed when he realized he had ended up somewhere familiar. It was the bar he'd met Jake/Jackie at and it surprised him that he'd chosen to take this way home in his delirium.

Maybe it shouldn't have. This was, of course, where all the events that had led up to this night had started. Without the secret meetings here he'd never have known about a Schecher or his financial problems or his business with New Son. He'd never have had any need to steal his mind back from a sultry invader sneaking through him.

As he passed the bar, his pulse slowing from the high-speed adrenaline rush, he considered stopping in for a drink. Then he decided that a drink would probably have the end-result of him leaving drunk and stupid by the time he was done.

His next thought was, _Would dat really be so bad?_

He decided that it wouldn't, and he had pulled his bike up to the curb between a beat up pick-up truck and a sleek black sports car and dismounted before he realized that drinking would mean his defenses would go down.

And that would mean that _she_ could get in.

He shivered. No. He'd wallow in angst and self-pity rather than in cheap beer.

He was about to get back on his bike when he saw the three girls, which seemed to be a permanent fixture in the bar, walk out, leaning close to each other and giggling as they whispered excitedly in each other's ears about something or other. They didn't seem too drunk, but they were definitely feeling a buzz and he wondered if they did this every night or if the last three in a row had just been a coincidence, an uncommon bout of self-indulgence.

They stepped off the curve, one of the almost falling off and the other two catching her and laughing, their bold lipstick accentuating their overly happy smiles. One of them was wearing a sparkly blue top and it shone in the streetlights.

It wasn't until they reached the middle of the street that the middle girl glanced over her shoulder and noticed his presence, the same girl that had come on to him that first night with Jake at the bar. Her face lit up and she waved enthusiastically as she noticed him, stopping in the middle of the street and oblivious to the rest of the world as her friends, equally oblivious, continued to cross to the other side.

He heard the Jeep tearing down the road before he turned and saw it, driving too fast to stop, its huge red form growing closer too quickly.

The girl was still staring at him, yelling something that he couldn't hear, followed by a giggle and then a hiccup. She had no idea that death was racing toward her in the cloak of a luxury caravan.

Legs ran toward her, he moving before logical thought could even plan an action, the hero-mode coming online automatically. Her expression changed as she turned her head to face the danger preparing to collide with her, fear freezing her position like carved ice forever frozen under the spotlights of the street lamps, amidst the smell of burning rubber and the sound of screeching tires.

It was his right arm that slammed into her, intending to grab her around the waist and hold her as he dove out of the way, but the injuries and the stress of the night were too much and it gave out, fingers tingling and muscles involuntarily relaxing, and as he rolled to the ground he was alone, the damsel still in distress screaming behind him. He turned terrified eyes, wide and glowing, to see her laying flat on the ground, body horizontal to the lines of the road and the oncoming car, knocked over by the impact of his attempted rescue.

Her eyes were big and shocked, her mouth opened in a endless scream that he would never forget. And then time ran out.

The tires spun past his upturned face, throwing dirty wind and the smell of the brakes at him.

And then the Jeep was gone, screeching to a halt farther down the road. She was there, laying exactly as she had been, silently crying with her head down in her arms with sobs that shook her body and she was alive by some chance that the tires had gone to either side of her, leaving her young, intoxicated body untouched.

He got up slowly, pushing against the concrete to go to her, afraid that his mind was playing tricks on him and she was really dead because he had failed, had watched the terror on her face and failed to save that carefree youth from a mindless body of metal and rubber.

But as he came to her and asked if she was okay, she nodded, never looking up, and he could see no sign of damage save for the cuts on her hands from her impact with the ground.

A crowd was starting to gather. He looked up to see their reactions. That's when they got the first clear look at his eyes, and with the first shout of "Mutie" he knew what would happen. He knew that the accident would become his fault and that he'd have a mob of civilians chasing him, calling him Diablo Blanc in their own unique ways. He saw it happen before it all did and refused to let himself see it again in real life, turning and running to his bike, driving off down the road before anybody could get a hold of him.

He felt like a boy on the streets of New Orleans, running from the gangs of boys that would torture him and beat him and chase him, always staring at his eyes in disgust.

It had been a long time since he had openly run-away, him always refusing to let himself be beaten by that world that hated him, refusing to let it have the satisfaction of thinking it was better than him, of knowing he was afraid.

But under extreme stress, with all other higher thinking and logic stripped away, base-instinct was all that remained.

He sped the bike all the way home, relieved to finally reach the driveway, winding through the dark to the X-Mansion, porch lights shining like the light at the end of a tunnel.

Carefully, focussing on his movements and still in a degree of shock, he stowed his bike away in the garage and made his way up the stairs and to his room. He wasn't sure if any of the X-Men were still awake, the barriers of paranoia in his mind too massive and crucial for him to use his higher powers, and he dropped into his bed not caring, not caring if Scott had seen him come back in the early hours of morning long after his unspoken but implied curfew, not caring if the mob of mutant-haters followed him here, not caring if the world blew up tomorrow. And in shear exhaustion, he fell into sleep, even forgetting to be apprehensive of the unconsciousness.

His dreams felt delusional, bight colors swirling in an endless sea, flickering and flashing like some living creature. He thought he felt her there, barely touching him but even the slightest brush obvious to his newly tuned mind, her emotional patterns full of guilt, trauma, uncertainty. He didn't understand what it meant or how to interpret it and he eventually fell deep enough into his hallucinogenic sleep that he forgot to consider it.

But when he woke up, with light torturing him through the space between his curtains, he remembered.

Because when he woke up, his arm was healed.

__

Fin Part 7


	8. Part 8

Part 8

He wasn't alone when he woke up, and of all people, he didn't expect to find who he did in his room, staring at him with a distant and stoic expression, her body wedged onto the narrow windowsill, one knee up and the other leg hanging down.

It must have been his exhaustion that kept him from waking at her arrival. It scared him that he had been left so defenseless by the previous night's events.

He sat up slowly, the black body suit from the night before still on but peeled down to the waist. He pushed himself up with his arms, back against the headboard, and as he did, he was surprised to feel no pain.

Bending his right arm, flexing the muscles under the covers, he tested its strength, never taking his eyes off his guest. But no matter what he did, he couldn't make it hurt, couldn't find the weakness and injury he knew must be there.

It was as if his arm had somehow healed overnight.

Swallowing hard, he pushed the topic away, forcing himself to deal with the present situation.

"Good mornin' Sarah, nice of you to drop by." He couldn't manage the humor and the smirk that should have accompanied the comment, too tired and cockiness requiring too much energy.

Her eyes slowly focused on him, her expression not changing, only becoming slightly less distant. She almost seemed surprised that he was awake and talking to her. She didn't say anything, only stared with those haunting, unforgettable eyes of hers. The red hair was growing out now, some strands hanging down across her face and in the dim light of the rising sun she almost looked pretty.

He tilted his head slightly. "Not like y' to be so quiet, chere."

For long dragging moments she didn't say anything, leaving the room in awkward silence. He waited, aware of everything, the bone poking through her forearm that her hand was resting on, the chair in the corner with his trenchcoat thrown over it and the cards in the pockets, the dresser on the other side of the closed door from the bed with his laptop on it, across from the window. The upper half of his body was cold, sitting up above the dark red comforter bundled around his waist.

And then, suddenly, she blurted: "I hate you." But there was a strange slur to the words that he had never heard out of her before. Not the fire or the confidence or the disgust that they should have held. Her somewhere-else eyes met his and he thought that she was questioning the statement, saying it just to see how it would sound to her, to try it on and see if it fit.

He wasn't sure how to respond, or if he should at all. The decision was made for him and words began pouring out of her.

"I came here to kill you," she said calmly, all her words so falsely indifferent, so carefully constructed, "I came here to kill you while you slept, defenseless and exhausted from being out late doing whatever keeps a traitor happy." A pause. "Calisto died last night, an infection from a battle eating its way to her heart, and so I came here to kill you and have vengeance for all the pain you caused her in life." She stopped then. It was like she was under some spell, talking without really being aware of the words.

"But I'm still alive," he said gently. Always master of the obvious.

She glared at him, the spell broken. "Well, aren't we the observant one." The sarcasm was more her character than anything that had come before.

"I try." A pause, then: "So, why is it I'm not dead?"

She looked away then. Her voice was quiet. "I don't know."

"Oh."

And then she cursed him. She stood and she cursed him and he thought he could see streaks of dried tears on her cheeks.

More silence. She seemed like she wanted to leave but didn't know how, trapped in her own inward thoughts, her own silent pain.

"I'm sorry, Sarah." He thought he meant about Callisto, and then realized he meant a lot more.

Anger flared behind her eyes. "Don't call me that." And then she took a step forward. "You were in the tunnels the other day. Why?"

He should have expected that she would have known. The place had been her home for all her memory and she would be aware of any disturbance, any intruder. "To resolve the past. To move on."

The effect of the words was rage, and seeing the frenzy on the face, he thought she might just decide that she would murder him after all. "Do you think you can just leave it all behind? Just bury it in the past?!" she shrieked.

"Oui, dat's exactly what I think."

"Traitor," she hissed, her voice low and threatening. "Do you really think I would let you forget what you've done?"

He shook his head. "No, not forget, never. But it's time to stop living in the past. It's time to use the lessons we've learned and apply them to the future." He was surprise at how philosophical and calm he sounded. It must be the lack of sleep.

She didn't seem to know what to do with that, standing frozen and trying to decide how she wanted to react. The impulses she had depended on her whole life were suddenly failing her.

"Why didn't you kill me?" He almost added "Sarah" at the end, then decided against it.

There was a bone dagger in her hand, pulled free from her forearm now, and she gripped it with deathly white knuckles. "I don't know," she said fiercely.

"Yes, you do," he chanced.

"What do you care?" she yelled, and then seemed to realize how stupid that sounded. "I don't owe you anything!"

He thought maybe she was telling herself this more than him. Carefully, cautiously, he unfolded the walls of his mind to barely touch her thoughts, careful not to go too deep, his skittish conscience suddenly telling him not to invade her privacy. She was a mass of confusion, pain and blind rage, he presumed spurred by Calisto's death, mixing up everything into a heterogeneous soup.

"Non, you don't," he agreed. "I owe you." He let the statement fall, as if to say, _You had every right to kill me, so why didn't you?_

She stared at him, and then she did something he didn't expect. She took the bone dagger and stabbed her palm, shaking as the blood flowed free, and then squeezing it shut to let the red liquid drip out onto the wooden floor.

She snarled at him, then closed her eyes, letting the pain clear her head. When she opened them again, there was a little less madness there. "I hate you," she growled, and then she was gone, out the door without a sound.

He almost believed her.

*******

He spent that morning in the Danger Room, testing and straining and re-testing his arm, over and over again. And when it was over, when there was sweat dripping off his brow, air heaving quickly in and out of his lungs, and a scattering of droids around him in tiny burnt piles on the metal floor, he was forced to come to the conclusion that his arm was completely healed.

He stood, dizzy from the excessive exercise that his body was used to, and stared down at the diamond shaped scar on the back of his hand. What did it really mean? Was the Green Ghost Lady really telling him the truth when she said she had no connection to Sinister? He found it hard to displace his paranoia.

And then he was still no closer to understanding the… thing that lived inside of him. He hadn't felt her presence since last night, his mental walls too high.

He wouldn't take them down again. He couldn't. He'd barely risk lowering them enough to use his powers, but to pull them low enough to see her over the top?—that was a mistake he wouldn't make again.

Flexing his arm, he gazed down at it. No pain. There was only one possible reason why. But why would she heal him? Why had she ever healed him in the past? A mercy gesture? Guilt? The face of the girl lying on the stone cold pavement, hysterical and tear-stained glanced up at his mind's eye as a crowd of mutant-haters closed in with obscene phrases and threats of violence.

His thoughts were interrupted by Jean relaying a message from Scott, telling him that, if he was done in the Danger Room, the fearless leader would meet him in the medlab after his checkup.

*Get out of m' head!* 

Then she was gone, leaving him alone with his thoughts again. He decided he was tired of thinking, as tired of thinking as he was of fighting. Glancing at the remnants of a one-man battle scattered across the floor, he ordered the Danger Room to clean up and cycle down before he walked out the door, aiming for a shower before his checkup. 

*******

She hated cages. She had an inherent need to be free, and ever since she'd gotten here the confinement had slowly been eating away at her. 

It was strange. Sometimes she felt like she was slowly drifting apart, diffusing into a entropy-rich mist and there would be a certain calm, a certain peace. A certain freedom.

And then she'd realize what was happening to her and force herself back together, rope in the spreading mist to be remolded into her female figure. The experience was terrifying. And it was happening more and more.

She'd never stayed in a person's body more than a few hours before Remy. And even then it had been short bursts of action, usually healing some disease by directly controlling the body's responses and submolecular activities, the thing that the Witness had centered her training around. She'd never understood why exactly he'd wanted her to learn how to heal. Somewhere, in her fantasies, she had always suspected that he was dying from some horrible disease and that eventually, when she was ready, he would ask her to heal him. And then, in the same fantasy, she would see herself refusing and him falling to the floor in fear and terror.

He never asked her to heal him. But then, she'd never given him the chance, had she? She'd left before he could. She was being escorted to a meeting with him when she had escaped, running blindly until she crashed into a man with an XSE logo across his right chest, someone who said he knew the man with the scar.

But even in her short training with him, she'd never practiced staying in someone's mind for too long. It was the emptiness that got her the most, and the spaces between action. Then there had been some lesson to learn and her mind was focused on some task that was part of her training, after which, she would promptly leave the host. But now? There were long stretches of time when she just hung in space, wondering how she could possibly be saving the world by sitting in this blackness diffusing slowly into the night…

And sometimes, with no one to hear, she would cry.

His walls had never been so strong before. She was only able to heal his arm while he was sleeping, with his guard only slightly relaxed. Now, she couldn't even feel his higher mind through the cage he had effectively put her in. The silence was decibels too loud.

Healing. That's what she did. That was what she had been trained to do. She'd left Remy injured so that he would be humbled, so that he would know pain and never be able to forget it. So that he would be distracted, unable to be the solid, omnipotent Witness that she knew. But then, he'd tried to save a girl from being hit by a car, and her minor torture of leaving his arm injured had almost caused that girl her death. Remy had tried to be a hero and she'd almost stopped that.

Could ghosts feel guilt?

Remy. She wondered when she had started thinking of him that way. He was the Witness, or the prerequisite to the Witness at least. She had to remember that, couldn't let herself forget what he'd done.

Digging up memories never too far away, she forced herself to watch her parents' death all over again.

She had to remember. And in the dark of nothingness, she shivered, bodiless, because she was afraid she was forgetting. Maybe her hate was slowly diffusing like her sense of self. She tried to gather it up around her, to use it to bind her goals, her mission, together.

She wondered what the date was. How much time did she have left? It was hard to tell when there was no sun to mark days. Was the transaction last night the key to it all? She'd tried to stop it and had failed. He was getting stronger, stronger than she had realized and it worried her. Her existence used to be contained on a plane that he wasn't more than dimly aware of, but now that he knew it was there, he was learning how to use his psionic form, to manipulate the world that she lived in.

Maybe it was already too late. Maybe last night had been the key and now it was over. She had failed. There was no way to be sure. New Son was somehow linked to the events that spurred her future, was this transaction how?

Everything she had come back for, her mission, her purpose might have been lost. She might have condemned her parents to die all over again.

And somewhere, her nonexistent heart ached with the possibility.

And she sobbed, deep and wracking, without eyes or tears.

*******

Harry's was starting to fill-up for the lunch hour, groups of people coming in twos and threes. Remy and Scott were sitting in the corner affectionately dubbed the "X-corner". The X-Men came here often enough that they had their own little table reserved. It was out of the way, set back from most of the others, and Remy sometimes wondered if they were always encouraged to sit there because they were frequent visitors, or because they were from that freak school down the road.

He put his elbows up on the glossy wood tabletop and stared at the stained menu that he probably could recite from memory. He glanced up at Scott. The dark raybans covering his eyes made the man's face show in unnatural shadows. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and filter out the dark. Scott looked up from his menu and met his gaze.

"Are you ready to order?"

"Been ready. Waitin' on you, mon ami," he replied lightly.

Scott smiled. "Well, it's so hard to choose. There are so many choices."

Remy chuckled and felt some of the tension ease out. There was no reason for him to be hostile here. On guard, yes. But hostile? He'd had enough of that the last few days.

"De waitress is starin' at you. I t'ink she likes you."

"Or maybe she's just wondering why we both refuse to take off our sunglasses."

"Maybe." Remy smirked. "I bet dat's why she has dat dreamy look on her face."

Scott blushed and then tried to hide it by holding up the menu to study it.

Remy watched him for a second longer before turning away. He rarely let himself see the man this way, just an ordinary guy in ordinary, yellow-less, spandex-less clothes, in an ordinary place. Somehow, leaving the X-Mansion and stepping outside had cast him in a new light.

It was also easier for Remy to see Scott as something more than a controlling authority figure without all the anxiety and tension Remy usually felt. As long as the walls stayed up in his head, he could almost relax. And for a moment, sitting here in Harry's Hideaway with a fellow mutant, he almost felt good. The Danger Room session, overall, had done a lot to release his stress. And the whole New Son thing was finally over, for better or for worse. Without any pain in his arm, he could almost forget anything had happened. He could almost feel normal. 'Normal' being a relative term, of course.

Just as long as Scott played nice-nice, and didn't decide to prod for information, life was good.

"Are you ready to order?" came the overly sweet and sugarcoated voice. The waitress looked down at them over black-rimmed glasses. She was young, a little heavy, with black hair thrown up in a messy pony tale.

They both muttered that they were, and there was that moment of confusion where nobody knows who should order first before she solved the problem by focusing her stare on Scott.

They ordered, she scribbled on her pad, told them "thank you" and that she would be back soon with their drinks, and was gone.

"So, how have you been lately, Remy?" Scott leaned back in the chair.

"Been better. Times are hard." He shrugged, the answer not really saying much definitively.

Scott nodded. "Yeah. They are." And for a moment Remy could see the tiredness creasing the edges of his eyes as his mind slipped into troubled thoughts and stress. He sighed. "It's getting harder and harder to be—" he paused, seeming to realize that there were people all around in earshot, "… what we are, these days."

Remy tilted his head, surprised at the admission. "It's never been easy." He said.

"No, it hasn't."

Remy raised his eyebrows at the man. "I t'ink you're stealing my job of pessimist. I t'ought I was the thief here. You tryin' to beat me out o' my profession, Scotty?"

Scott smiled distantly, "No, of course not."

Remy shrugged and also leaned back comfortably in his chair. He caught a girl from another table staring out of the corner of his eye and winked at her. She didn't react. He remembered that he was wearing dark sunglasses and looked away, embarrassed.

"What?" Scott asked, noticing Remy's momentary loss of coolness.

"Nothing. Guess it's just easy to forget sometimes."

Somehow Scott knew exactly what he meant without questioning him.

"You've been in and out of the mansion a lot lately," Scott commented casually.

Here it came. He had to expect the questioning to come eventually; he could almost feel white, hot lights shining down and accusing him. "So?"

"Look Remy, I'm not trying to force information out of you, but as your team leader, I need to make sure things are okay. You've been through a lot."

"Things are fine."

Scott gazed at him for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. If you say so… I need to trust you." It took a lot for him to say that, Remy could feel it. "But I also needed to ask."

Remy avoided Scott's eyes. He couldn't explain why, but he suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable. Trust… being offered to him? It felt wrong, unnatural, surprising. It was all he'd ever really wanted and everything he'd never really expected to have.

The waitress came, set the drinks on the table. She asked if they needed anything. Remy didn't look up. Scott said that everything was fine. She left.

"So, how t'ings been around the mansion lately?" Remy finally said to saturate the silence. "Like y' said. I've been in and out a lot."

Scott shifted in his chair, resting a forearm across the table. He seemed so much less rigid here, not straight backed and ever-tense, like in the mansion, and Remy could see the visible change without the stress that must weigh on the man's back whenever in his role as leader. "Well, I guess relatively quiet, all things considered. We expected more situations to arise with the Mutant Registration vote approaching. I think everybody is just waiting though, waiting to see what happens."

"And then?" Remy took a sip of his Dr. Pepper.

Scott looked down at his hands, and then looked up again when he failed to find the answers there. "I don't know. I guess I'm waiting too."

But Remy could see, even with his empathy locked behind walls, that Scott knew what would happen. If Registration passed, it could severely hamper the dream. He wondered when it was that dreams strained enough to shatter.

"Other than that," Scott started up suddenly from his thoughts, "Betsy has been calling a lot lately. She says that she has been having some strange feelings—anxiety attacks, or something like them. She thinks it has something to do with the Shadow King. Jean is going to run a Cerebro check for him this evening. Cerebro has been set on an automatic search pattern for the professor since we got back, and Jean has been reluctant to interrupt it to search for a villain who is pretty much MIA."

"How's Warren?" Remy tried to sound like he didn't really care.

"They only just got up to the cabin yesterday, but he says he already feels better, like he can stretch out and be free."

The waitress came and set their food down before them. They had both ended up with hamburgers, Remy's with the works and Scott's traditional style. She was gone again.

Remy took a big bite and when his mouth was empty enough to speak: "So is dat it? No juicy gossip, homme?"

"Not really. Or at least, nothing that you need to hear." Scott grinned with a slyness that Remy hadn't expected from him, and then the expression died. "But, you know, there has been this strange draft in the kitchen lately." He didn't smile, probably being careful to at least halfway play the leader and not make light of blowing a hole in the wall.

"Dat's pretty strange. Maybe one o' de windows has a leak in de insulation."

Scott kept his face straight. "I want that fixed. You did say you would pay for it."

Remy made a show of scratching his fuzzy head. "Wow. Y' know, my memory is really goin' dese days. Maybe I been hit ov'r de head one too many times. I really don't recall offering to pay…" He gave an innocent look. He should have known by now, that such an expression was nearly impossible with his features, but at least he had the sunglasses hiding his eyes.

"That's why I'm here to remind you. Fix it. Before it snows again."

"Relax, Scotty, consider it done."

Scott gave him a look. "Why does that not comfort me."

Remy grinned and went on eating his sandwich. He couldn't remember the last time he had just sat down and had lunch, passing jibes with another person. Hopefully, it would happen more frequently.

But of course, things never worked out the way he hoped.

*******

"I don' like dis game," Remy complained, staring at the monopoly board set up on the coffee table in the den. He, Rogue, and Storm were sitting around it on the floor, enjoying an afternoon relaxing. Scott had retreated to the boathouse with Jean. They really had two homes now: one room in the mansion, and the boathouse. They took turns between the two, using the mansion when they needed to be near the team and the boathouse when they wanted to get away for a bit. Remy could only imagine what they were doing there together now.

"Why not, sugah?" Rogue asked innocently, raising her eyebrows. She was wearing a clingy green shirt that showed off her figure nicely and drawstring pants. Her hair was in pigtails, not a usual style for her, and the effect was a girlish appeal.

"I believe," Storm said playing along, "that it may have something to do with him being a sore loser." The two women look at each other knowingly.

"Am not," Remy interjected playfully. "It's not fair t'ough. You _knew_ de shoe was bad luck. That's why you gave it to me."

Rogue gave him a berating look. "Remy, you picked the shoe yourself."

"Only 'cause you an' Storm already took all the good pieces."

"Remy, stop being a baby and roll." Storm handed him two dice.

He took them sulkily and soon forgot his annoyance as he became caught up in a series of luck-bringing rituals, from rubbing to blowing to kissing (Rogue made a face and started coughing sporadically then) and finally urging the dice with words. He ended up landing on Storm's boardwalk with the red shiny hotel on it.

"See, what did I tell y'!"

Rogue waved a dismissing hand. "Would ya hush up and pay?"

He did. And he was left with one measly dollar. He stared at it sorely. Then he glared at Storm.

Ororo tilted her head and raised her eyebrows. "It would appear that I have wiped you dry."

Remy didn't say anything. He was pouting, and for once there were no smart remarks to make.

Rogue laughed. "I think the swamp rat is stuck down a river without a paddle."

He let them exhaust themselves with laughing at his predicament and then he got up carefully, walked over to the couch and took two cushions in his hands. He turned and smiled calmly at the ladies and as the realization hit their expressions and the "Don't you dare!" started to form on their lips, he pegged them each.

He sat down satisfied, sneaking a fifty from the bank as he did so, the women too distracted with fixing their hair and yelling at him to notice.

"I believe it's your roll, Rogue."

"Remy, I promise, when I'm through with you, the only thing your gonna believe is that I ain't a gal to mess with." She punched her hand with her fist to emphasize the threat.

Remy smirked. "Do y' really promise?" he asked in an excited tone.

Rogue answered with a frustrated noise and then took up the dice to roll.

He watched, and couldn't help the content expression that he knew he must be wearing. Overall, it had been a good day thus far. Judging by yesterday's events, he'd woken up believing that today would be hard pressed to be worse. Thankfully, that theory hadn't been tested. Even he and Scott had had a good lunch together without any fighting. And now, here he was, with the two women he was closest to, just having a good time. A drop of water hit him on the head, interrupting his thoughts. He frowned, blinking and wondering if he had just imagined it. But then he felt it again and he looked up to see a small rain cloud directly overhead, happily pouring out its contents on his fuzzy scalp. His gaze shot to Storm where she was sitting trying to hide a smirk and failing slightly, her eyes glazed over with white.

His eyes narrowed mischievously and he grinned lopsidedly. Two could play at that game. He got up. The storm cloud followed. It dissipated abruptly as he came to where she was sitting to avoid getting her wet. She looked up at him, both innocence and curiosity playing on her perfect features. And then, he lowered his head and ran a hand though his fuzz of hair toward her. Tiny droplets of water sprayed down at her and she winced. He sat down again.

"Oh no, you moistened my skin. I think I shall melt now." Sarcasm was rare for Storm, but when she used it, it had an amusing effect if for its abnormality.

He winked. "I seen stranger t'inks happen."

Rogue finished giggling at the scenario and noticed Remy's additional assets. "Remy, where did that fifty come from?"

"Uhh… I was sittin' on it."

"You were sitting on it?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"For safe keepin'. You never know what thieves dere are lurking around." He looked markedly at Storm.

"Nice try. Hand it over, Remy." Rogue held out a gloved hand.

Remy smirked devilishly. "Make me."

Her green eyes flared gloriously in fake anger. "Gladly," she snarled. She glanced at Storm and the two women nodded conspiratorially to each other.

They were both on him before he could get away, tickling him until he couldn't breathe. And then they sat on his stomach side by side talking about something totally unrelated and ignoring the fact that their chair was a human being as he gasped to catch his breath.

"You ladies are very cruel," he commented darkly when he could.

Rogue held up the fifty and waved it in front of him. "But we know how to get what we want."

"And you," he went on, pointing a finger at Storm, "I'd expect dis from Rogue here, but not from you."

Storm shrugged and leaned back to look at him. "I don't enjoy being called a thief."

They were still sitting on him and the pressure was starting to weigh down heavily on his abdomen. Carefully, he started to charge the seats of their pants through his shirt. He had to fight a chuckle as he did so, to keep from giving his plan away. Storm was wearing some sort of thin translucent material, and it gathered kinetic energy much faster than Rogue's cotton pants. Plus, Rogue had the special resistance and resilience of her skin to save her, so Storm was the one to jump up suddenly shouting about hot pants.

"Why yes, Storm, you do have very hot pants," Remy commented.

She blushed and then scowled, going to sit back where she had been earlier during the game. "I suggest you be careful the next few days. You may wake up in the middle of a monsoon tomorrow."

Remy chuckled. Rogue looked confused throughout the whole thing until she finally seemed to notice her warming pants and muttered an "oooooooh," and then she shrugged and stayed where she was. "It feels kinda nice to me. Toasty."

He considered blowing up her pants completely to try to get a rise out of her and then decided that her anger might be a little more than he wanted to try to handle. He was really very happy with the way his face was arranged right now and didn't want to challenge her into changing it. He also considered stopping the kinetic energy all together, but if she was enjoying it, he might as well continue. So he did.

The monopoly game seemed to have been abandoned. They had been playing for about an hour and the game getting boring now. So they just talked about random, unimportant things, as he lay there, warming the tush of the woman he thought he loved. Sometimes, on rare occasions, life really could be quite good.

*******

The bed was nice and comfortable. He'd only meant to lay down and relax for a little while before he checked his email and the messages on his cell phone.

He hadn't even realized he was falling asleep until he was already walking in his dreams, reliving last night over and over in endless torture. The girl was there, staring up at him, always staring, as the vehicle came racing towards her, his mind embellishing and changing things to make his worst nightmares true for a dream's length of eternity. In his dreams, she died, his fears personified, and as she lay there, he thought he saw a green mist float up around her body.

He was running before he realized he was doing it, unaware in his delirium that he was forming the psionic version of himself as he did so, the memory driven image of himself metamorphosing into a being of blue and sparking light. He didn't know where he was going, but the darkness seemed safe. Yes, the darkness, the place in his mind where nothing was, where nothing could hurt him, where he could be alone.

He'd forgotten that he could never be alone in his mind now.

She was huddled in a ball when he saw her and he almost jumped back as he was struck by the memory of her presence. It was hard to believe that he had forgotten, that he'd really expected this place to be empty.

Her head snapped up as he skidded to a stop and on her face was birthed a twin expression of his own surprise. There were crystals on her cheeks, slowly sliding down and he thought the illusion must be a representation of tears.

She stood suddenly. "Get out!" she yelled. Her body was all jagged edges, reflecting her mood.

Did she remember that it was his mind? He didn't move, didn't say anything, still not sure of his bearings.

Her voice was horse, raspy, and he could see that she was desperately trying to collect herself. "Didn't you hear me!" The yell was too loud in the empty darkness.

He wasn't sure what made him do it, but he took a step closer to her, trying to be as non-threatening as possible. Maybe it was wrought out of having no better reaction.

"Leave me! Why won't you just leave me alone?!" She looked like she might charge him and hit him.

"I can't," he stuttered out, wondering why that was the first answer that came to mind.

Her eyes were tumbled emeralds. "You can," came the quiet snarl.

"Never been able to escape my mind before, no matter how hard I've tried." 

She looked up at him, vicious anger driven by desperation in her face. "That didn't seem to stop you from walling this part off for the last day."

He didn't know how to answer that. Of course he could leave… but then he couldn't. Something kept him there, rooted to the illusionary ground and forcing him to face this intruder in his mind. Forcing him to wonder what could bring her to tears when last time he'd faced her she had appeared to be carved out of vibrant, brilliant, solid stone.

Perhaps it was really glass.

Her image was sharpening before him, and as the blackness around him brightened, he realized that the whole place had been doused in a greenish halo earlier. But now, the crystal tears had shattered and her composure was returning and the moment of weakness that he'd walked in on was gone.

The emeralds had narrowed to slits. "I am still in control here. I can kill you without a second thought."

He recognized the threat, and its purpose to change the subject, for what it was. It was a familiar tactic. "Then why haven't you." It was time to face his ghosts.

"I've been merciful."

"Have you?"

"Yes."

He captured her eyes with his own. It was time to get some answers. He knew from last night that she wasn't invincible. She couldn't take over his mind unchallenged. "Why?"

"Are you asking me not to be?" She managed a wicked little smile.

He tilted his head, took a deep breath, kept his expression controlled. "Non, I'm asking you why you are."

The smile faded a bit. Nothing for a moment, and then: "Because I'm not like you."

It was his turn to narrow his eyes. "What do you know about what I'm like?"

She giggled, a very strangled sound. "How do _I_ know what you're like? I know you better than you know yourself…" She came very close to him, her head reaching his shoulders and she looked up directly into his eyes. He could feel her presence in the form of a breeze and it tingled across his body like electricity. "…Witness," she breathed.

"I'm not de Witness." He resisted the urge to step back.

Her voice was falsely sweet, every action designed to recreate the illusion of power that she had lost. "No… but you will be."

"I'm not de Witness," he repeated, a little more forcefully.

They were standing so close and he could feel the cool breeze of her mist upon his face and he suddenly felt the urge to touch her, to make sure she was real. "Sorry to disappoint you." He lifted her chin with his hand, to force her to keep eye contact with him.

And she immediately jumped back, touching the place he had and acting as if she had been burned. 

But the brief contact had been enough and he could still feel the residual shadow of her in his mind from the joining the touch had brought. For a moment, he had been inside her. For a moment he had been her. It was completely unexpected and it was… exhilarating and terrifying all at the same time.

He was trembling.

"Don't ever touch me again." Her voice was hardened lava rock.

His was a whisper: "What was that?"

"The same thing that lets you live my memories."

He was staring at the hand that had touched her. He looked up. "How does dat happen?"

She looked away, then looked back. "When two minds touch intimately enough, they merge into one."

"Intimately enough?"

She glared directly at him. "You rape my mind."

She was angry… and hurt. The distance between them was noticeable, and her shadow had faded from his mind. "It's not rape if you're willing."

And that was the comment that ignited her, a ticking bomb set when he had interrupted her emotional release, an explosive whose fuse had just run out. "I've never been willing! I did what I did because I had to. Because it was the only way I thought I could stop the future." She looked down, green strands of hair falling over her face to shadow it. A curse slipped from her lips, muttered to the ground.

He knew she was completely off balance, that she'd never quite been on balance since he'd come here. This was the time to find out as much as he could. "What is de future?"

She was on her knees now, arms wrapped around herself, and then, she slowly looked up, hair hanging around her features and obscuring them. "I can still kill you. I can end it now, save my parents, save everyone. I was stupid to let you live."

He shook his head. "I ain't buyin' dat act anymore, all you ever done is heal me. If you're so eager to kill me, dan you would have done it by now if you could." He was taking a gamble. He hoped it would pay off.

"I made a mistake. Horrible, horrible, mistake. I was too soft, thought I could change you, thought you were changed. It might be too late now, but I have to try. I have to try to make it better." She was standing now.

"I ain't the Witness, and I ain't gonna be." There was doubt somewhere in him as the words left his mouth. He wasn't sure where it came from.

She was despondent for a moment, as if she wasn't there with him, hearing him or seeing him. And then she was suddenly present again, gasping suddenly. Her head shook back and forth forcefully. "No! I won't let it happen again! I can't let them die again!" A choked sob. "I can't see them die again! No!"

And as he watched, eyes widening in the sudden realization that he may have just lost his bet, she rose up and spread her arms, suddenly becoming crystal sharp and defined, before her body seemed to explode as green light shot out from her in all directions. He had a moment to think about putting up his shields but not the extra moment to actually do it. The wave of light hit him, knocking the nonexistent air out of his lungs and flipping him over, carrying him and strangling him and it ripped him across the jagged edges of his mind and unraveled him, his psionic coat snagging on edges and unwinding until the psionic plane was only a dim touch on his mind. He saw the tunnel of light approach and was hurled through it…

…Into consciousness. He gasped for a desperate breath of air as his eyes snapped open and he saw the reality of his room. He had to try a couple of times before the air would go in and he realized he was freezing and that his eyes were tearing.

He tried to wipe them.

He couldn't.

He tried again. And again. And again.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't move anything, not even his lips to scream.

And in its cage of paralysis, his heart cried out, beating against the walls around it for freedom.

He had taken a gamble. He had lost.

__

Fin Part 8


	9. Part 9

****

Part 9

He was trapped.

Trapped in a world without feeling, without movement, without possibility.

She'd left all his senses other than touch intact. He could smell the sweat on his body, hear the beating of his heart, swift and urgent to match the rapid intake of his lungs. He could taste the sour fear in his mouth at the thought that he might never move again. And he could see only what the immobile position of his head would afford him. A perfect view of the white ceiling, with its cracking paint.

He could observe his environment and yet had absolutely no control over it.

He was helpless. It was arguably the most terrifying moment of his life.

At first he hadn't believed it. How could the Green Ghost Lady really have that much control over him? He'd thought it was just some mind trick and he had tried and tried to break free, to send the commands over blocked nerve endings spanning the distance to his fingers and toes, desperately pleading with them to wiggle. And then it had occurred to him that even if he did manage to make them move the slightest bit, without the sense of touch and with his gaze permanently fixed on the ceiling, he wouldn't even be able to tell the difference.

So then he'd tried more observable tasks. But his arms never rose. His leg never twitched. And his head never turned to afford him a different point of view.

After a while, he gave up in exhaustion. Or maybe he was only taking a break.

He thought about spending the rest of his life lying in a bed not able to move. He didn't like the prospect. He'd been dealt a bad hand. He wouldn't accept that, had been taught not to almost before he could walk. You get bad cards, you trade them in. Or you bluff. 

There was no way of telling how long he had been lying there in paralysis. It could have been hours, or perhaps only seconds.

However long it had been, it had been too long. It was funny the amount of time it seemed to take him to even realize that he wasn't completely trapped, that there was a way out of this cage, a keyhole that nothing so tangible and physical as his body could fit through. But he didn't need his body. 

He had his mind.

It was hard to relax and allow his consciousness to fade enough to stop distracting him with sensations from the real world. He found that strange considering how much less sensory input he had than usual. But gradually, the ceiling faded and he could sense another plane of existence, another pathway, and as the darkness deepened that astral plane brightened and he gathered around him the blue light of his substance.

He was suddenly there, in the place where _she_ was, taking the journey in the blink of an eye. She seemed to have been waiting for him, expecting him to return. A new feeling of power emanated in the way she stood. No more tears here, just a woman who knew she was in control and loved it. As much as he hated her at this moment, there was something extremely attractive in the way she carried herself.

Deep breaths filled his nonexistent lungs and exhaled in puffs of blue electricity around him. He could feel the pure emotion hanging in the air here like a tangible thing and it made him acutely aware of the darkness and the ghosts it whispered of.

"Okay, so y' showed me what you can do," he conceded, keeping his voice level. "What do you want?" He maintained the distance between them, remembering her reaction the last time he had come too close.

She tilted her head and seemed to contemplate her answer. "I want the future to be a place where life is more common than death."

He straightened his shoulders and met her eyes. "An' how do I fit into that?" 

She was calmer now than before, in control. "You are the reason it is the way it is. You caused it all somehow."

"Somehow? You don' know for sure? Dan how do you know I'm even responsible? I been being told since Bishop came back dat I de reason de X-Men were betrayed, and den dere was Onslaught and we realized it was Xavier all along. What makes you so sure dis time?"

She blinked. "You told me."

He wasn't sure how to reply to that, so he settled on a look filled with the confusion he felt inside.

"In the future," she added impatiently.

It was getting closer to making sense. "Y' mean de Witness told you."

"Yes. You."

He was surprised at how easily she was answering his questions. Perhaps it had something to do with her newfound power. She felt secure, that radiated out from her in waves, and maybe it was that assurance of security that made her willing to share information. "So you're from de future," Remy stated, doing his duty as master of the obvious. "Den how did you get here?"

She smiled wickedly. "I'm a mutant, anything's possible."

"Apparently," he commented sourly, referring to his present physical condition.

Somehow she seemed to know what he meant, and smirked with arched eyebrows and a powerful stance. He suddenly became very paranoid that she was reading his mind, and then in the same thought realized how stupid that was. She was _in_ his mind. There was a very good chance she knew everything about him. That idea struck him like a slap in the face. She knew his secrets and his mistakes, his past. And the reasons she hated him were for things he hadn't even done yet.

"Do you really want to know what the future holds?" she asked icily.

He had the feeling he was going to regret his answer. "Oui."

He thought she was going to touch him again, let him relive some more of her memories, but she didn't touch him. Instead, she walked toward him and then past. "Follow me. This time you see without violating my mind." she threw over her shoulder, not looking back to check if he did or not. He did.

They reached the crossroads of his mind and turned right. To his dreams. He watched as ahead of him her form seemed to unravel and dissipate. He paused for a moment, not sure exactly how to follow suit, or whether he really wanted to. Glancing at the path ahead of him, at the swirling mist of his dreams, he wondered what he would find there. Only one way to find out. Doing the opposite of what he did when he gathered his psionic form, he gently released his hold on the energy around him. There was a gust of cold air as the layers of blue light were stripped off, as if he had opened his coat to the chill outside, and as he went forward, he was immersed in a deepening fog and a closing blackness. It was a sensation like falling down a deep hole but never reaching the bottom, all the mental senses he had been relying on dampening as his astral form disappeared. For a moment he was simply falling in groggy darkness.

And then there was a world of senses surrounding him. He was standing on a hill, staring out at the graves again. It was just like the vision he had experienced earlier, only this time he was living it through his own eyes, rather than someone else's. It was windy here, a cold wind that sent shivers up his spine and reminded him of the desolate and gnarled fingers of chill that had crawled up and down his back all through Antarctica. There was a tree, sickly and scraggly next to him, one he'd never seen before, and he realized he must be looking at the graveyard from a different vantage point. From here, the graves seemed to extend for an even greater distance than before, and as he slowly turned his head to gain a panorama, he realized there must be millions of dark patches marked only by stray misshapen stones. How many unnamed soldiers found their deaths here? It sickened him to think about it.

He was so consumed in the gothic scenery that it took him a moment to realize he was not alone, that next to him stood a figure, looming slightly behind his right shoulder. He turned to see who his companion was. A woman—young, maybe 18, maybe 20. She was tall, slim, but not in the fashion model sense, rather, in an unnatural way, like her body shape was not by choice but by lack of nourishment. Maybe she would have been beautiful had she been healthier, had her skin not been so pale and the muscles not stood out in such stark contrast against the bones under her skin. But still, she wasn't ugly. Her face was all hard lines, solid, built out of traumas and tragedy. Chin length black hair fell layered around her face, straight and smooth. The clothes were adventurer style, but tattered—scuffed black artillery boots, cargo pants hanging low on her hips, worn and stained at the bottoms, tearing at the knees and other places. A black tank top was above a heavy utility belt, compartments and what looked like a weapon clipped to it. She wore many necklaces, mostly beads that looked almost ritualistic. His gaze came back up to the face, to the eyes above the sharp, high cheekbones. They were green, like smoldering emeralds and he suddenly knew without another thought who she was. So the Green Ghost Lady was a real person after all.

He felt like he was supposed to break the silence, so he did. "Well, dis be a new look, chere."

Her expression was sour. "We are no longer on the astral plane, but somewhere in between it and consciousness. Dreams are as close as most people get to it, and here, your mind projects itself as how it sees itself, not as it really is."

"So, dis is what you remember lookin' like." The wind lifted up her hair briefly and it flew into her face. She seemed not to care.

"Yes. When I had a body, it was something like this. But because of you, I had to loose it." There was no mistaking the anger in the words.

It was her usual ambiguity. He had many questions, and he decided to start with the apparent remains of destruction all around. "What happened here?"

Her lips tightened to a thin line and her eyes got even harder, if that was possible. "The Human-Mutant War happened. We don't know how it started, only that you, and likely New Son, were involved.

There was a sharp intake of breath, involuntarily, and he realized it was from him. The Human-Mutant War. It was the thing of legends to the X-Men, elusively hanging over the horizon, constantly threatening them and promising to meet them one day. And this was the result. He surveyed the graveyard again, imagined many of the people he knew dead, resisted the idea. And it made him wonder why it was he felt so sure that this woman, barely more than a teenager from the looks, was telling him the truth, why he felt like he could trust her.

But he knew the answer. She was a part of him, as much himself as any other part since Antarctica, and he felt like he _knew_ her in a way he'd never known anyone before, in an intimate way born of sharing a mind.

He didn't want to hear the answer, but he had to ask the question. "An' de X-Men?"

"Why ask questions you already know the answer to?"

He swallowed uncomfortably. This wasn't the first time he'd heard a story like this. Ever since Bishop the idea had haunted him, despite his outward denials and resistance to it. The X-Men had become such a big part of his life, had filled an empty space that Sinister had created. It didn't seem right to imagine a world without them. But this woman was telling him it was true. They were going to die. And he was going to live.

He could feel her looking at him as he stared, lost in thoughts, at the bleak scenery. "Shocking, isn't it?" she said.

Maybe he would have replied, but as it was, no words even had the chance to form in his mind, the scene that had him so engross suddenly melting into an amorphous shape.

The images swirled around him and he swayed, suddenly dizzy and not sure where he was. Fog rolled in around him and when it finally cleared and he could stand up straight, he was in an extravagantly designed room. The rug was plush and thick, a deep crimson color, matching the curtains. There wasn't much light, and instead of being painted white to add a airy feeling to the room like they should have been, the walls too were painted a dark crimson. There was a bookcase, an intricately carved wood cabinet, some ornamental lamps that looked very expensive and Remy thought quite tasteful, and a deep, overstuffed, easy-chair. His gaze scanned the room and its other assorted contents until he came to the huge redwood desk at the center of the room, with a man sitting behind it. The man was writing something, not seeming to notice he was there.

Remy stared at him for a moment, and then remembered that somebody was missing. He turned in a slow circle, lavish furnishings passing in his view, but she was gone.

He wondered if maybe he really was dreaming, if this whole thing had been one big dream. That's the way it felt now, different from when he had relived the Green Ghost's memories in the past… then he had no control over anything, was stuck in someone else's perspective to experience what they had… Now? He wasn't sure that his own mind hadn't created this place.

The man hadn't noticed him yet. That was strange, but then, the word 'strange' had taken on whole new meaning lately.

Remy glanced at the man again, wondering who he was. The head was down, long windings of loose white hair blocking the face. He'd have to go closer to really see… but his stomach was twisting in knots already, and he wasn't sure that he really wanted to know, afraid his suspicions might me true.

He decided to explore the room first. There was a book lying in the seat of the plush easy-chair, a very old book, with a brown warn cover and yellowed edges. He went over to it, feeling the rug squish loudly beneath his feet and recognizing the protective quality of the material. Nobody could ever sneak up on you if every step meant excessive noise.

The book was heavy in his hands, and as he opened it, the covered creaked threateningly. Inside there was a photograph, very old looking, covered with clear plastic. The colors had faded horribly and it looked like it might have ripped and been taped back together several times. Remy bent over it, trying to make out the dozen-or-so faces… and then he froze.

He knew these people. Knew them all. And he'd seen this picture before in one of the flashbacks the Green Ghost Lady had sent him. His eyes tracked across the familiar faces, Storm, Rogue, Wolverine, Beast, Bobby with some sort of Band-Aid on his forehead. Even Trish was there, standing next to Hank and snuggled up under one large furry hand. Remy found himself on the fringes, a smirk plastered on his face, staff in hand, and his hair shorter than he usually liked it.

Twisting sharply, he faced the man again, the dread inside growing. He glanced back at the book, turning a few pages, and finding them strangely blank, the weight of the book indicating that it should be filled with scraps. He placed it down gently and walked back to the large desk, trying to minimize the noise his boots made against the rug.

The tabletop was glass-smooth. The man still didn't react to his presence and even from this close it was hard to see the down-turned face conveniently draped in shadows, but it was evident that the man was quite old. Remy looked at what he was writing and had to blink a few times. Though the pen moved across the page, no ink came out and no words filled the blank paper.

He felt his eyebrows rise. 

And then the man looked up for the first time. 

Remy blinked and swallowed. Hard. The man was staring at him with red-on-black eyes, the same ones he had seen in the mirror everyday of his life. Except these were different. They were pain hardened, smoldering with anger, sparking with a sense of eternal frustration and… there were shadows, shadows of something akin to despair. These were eyes much more tortured than his own, despite how tortured he'd always been. 

Remy suddenly found it very hard to swallow correctly. 

The man's face was worn, scarred by flying shrapnel and long days spent out in the sun, with a particularly bad scar following the line of his cheekbone. Long, white hair was mostly tied back at the neck with a piece of leather and the clothes consisted of a black tunic. He couldn't see the rest of the man's outfit below the desk. 

It didn't matter though. He knew who this man was.

A voice drifted up around him, echoing about the room. "Look familiar?" it whispered menacingly.

He spun around quickly, searching for the emerald eyes he knew must be watching him. There was no one to see except for the man at the table.

He looked at the man's eyes again. "Dat's not me." He wasn't sure who he was telling it to, only that he had to say it, to hear the words and give them substance.

There was no answer. He looked around, searching for her, knowing she must be nearby somewhere, earnestness in his expression and needing to hear someone else confirm his words, afraid they might not be true. There was ugliness inside of him, an ugliness he hated… could it one day manifest itself this way? "You know dat's not me. You been inside m' head." He said to the air around him, a little louder.

But still, she did not reply. 

Finally he heard her voice, sounding like it was originating from right behind his shoulder. He twirled around. No one was there. "You are already working with New Son. He's a part of it."

She was sidestepping the issue. Familiar tactic. "How?" he asked, not sure where to direct the question.

It took a moment for the next echoed reply. "I don't know," she conceded reluctantly. "But what I know is that the pieces are falling together too quickly and that I waited too long to do something about it. I see my mistake now." 

He felt something draw him to look at the man behind the table again, and then she said: "I'll make sure this man never exists."

He looked away and didn't say anything, not sure what he could say to that. He could be smart, confrontational, but that would do nothing to help his situation. He looked back at the Witness. The eyes stared at him with unimaginable depths, beckoning him closer to see the gruesome and horrible secrets they held. Remy felt like he was being sucked into them, forced to some deep and dark place, grabbed by tendrils of hate and anger. The room spiraled away around him as he slid toward the red centers of those black tunnels.

******

She was bracing herself with every wall, every defense she had. There was a reason why she was showing him this way, why she wouldn't let him experience directly what she was going to reveal to him next, and it was more than just the slimly feeling that covered her when she let him live inside her mind. These next memories… they were hers. She would not let him steal them from her, defile them. The Witness sitting at the desk had just been a warm-up really, letting him walk around in her mental recreation of the man's office while she worked up the courage for the real reason she had brought him here, while she got ready to relive her nightmares and got ready to share that nightmare with the bringer of all her nightmares.

It was time now. She took a deep breath.

And she remembered.

******

Gasping suddenly, he came out the other side… into a room? He was sitting on a floor covered in a tattered rug, with a home-made coffee-table positioned directly in front of him, rising to the level of his nose. Gathering himself, he slowly stood, taking in what looked to be a living room around him. Dilapidated, worn down. Whoever lived here wasn't very rich. 

A woman sat on a wooden chair listening as a man turned knobs on something that looked suspiciously like a radio. A girl ran into the room, no doubt the daughter, and sat on the couch next to the man, beaming with the boundless energy of the young. She couldn't have been more than 12, if that much, and her straight black hair and green eyes were striking on the round face.

It was a peaceful family evening. Something that could be taking place in a million different households at this very moment. Well, maybe not right this moment. There was a marked lack of technology, so that it looked like this had happened at least 20 years ago. 

A loud noise, and his attention suddenly snapped to the front door. Three men had burst through, and by the looks of surprise and shock on the faces of the room's occupants, the men were not expected nor wanted. 

All black. They were dressed completely in black, except for the silver guns that hung in the holsters at their sides. Even the eyes were dark, shifty, sitting in dark faces with dark expressions.

These men were killers. Remy had no trouble recognizing that fact. He'd grown up next-door to a clan of Assassins. There was a certain way killers carried themselves, with a defiance while at the same time giving the impression that they were carrying heavy weights on their shoulders.

The weights were particularly heavy on these men. And Remy knew that they were here for blood.

"What do you want?" the woman was asking frantically, already aware that the guns weren't for show. She stepped toward her daughter protectively, pushing the girl with wide eyes behind her.

One of the men spoke with a voice as gruff as his countenance. He was probably the leader, and was definitely the biggest of them, with muscles bulging from bases of more muscles. "You didn't hold up your end of the deal." He shrugged. No biggie. He probably went after people who didn't pay up all the time.

But not today. Remy would make sure of that. Rolling across the floor to stay low, he used his upper back and arms and the momentum of the movement to slam into the leading man's knees with a powerful kick. The man never reacted, never even looked down, and Remy's feet went right through him leaving him lying on the ground and trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

And then he remembered that this was only a dream. Not even just a dream, but a memory, someone else's memory. And he could do nothing to change it. He got up, backed away. He could only watch.

Another of the men, only slightly smaller than the leader spoke from the shadows, "Give us what we came for." There was no need to add the 'or else'.

The woman held her daughter tightly, viciously, and in all her fear and resistance, spit out: "Never!"

The man—the father, was pleading with the men, trying to make them understand that the deal was unreasonable, that he couldn't be expected to follow through.

The gruff one just shrugged again and then actually chuckled. "You think we care? Sorry, mister, not our problem."

The guns came out. Both father and mother were screaming for them to stop, begging for their lives as they clutched their daughter, too young to understand, between them.

Remy jumped at the first gunshot, even though he had expected it.

The second brought the woman to her knees to join her husband spilling blood on the floor. But, as she slipped lower, as the red pumped across her shirt from her heart, there was a sudden clarity in her expression, her eyes coming upon her daughter. With the last energy at her disposal, she brought her consciousness together for one final moment, one final word.

"Run!"

And then she fell to the ground completely and was still.

The girl stared a moment longer, and then the men were approaching her with their black clothes and their black purpose and Remy watched her turn and flee. Not out the front door where she would have been caught up in their arms as she passed, but into one of the back rooms.

The men followed, slipping through a doorway out of view. Shouts about the girl having climbed out the window were heard. The voices faded.

Silence. Nothing but the faint sound of blood spurting onto the floor as the unconscious father's heart slowly pumped the rest of its life out.

Finally, the room faded away into darkness. The bodies were the last to go.

He stood, perfectly still, blinking in the night of his mind.

The Green Ghost was behind him now, he was sure. He could feel the static of her mind. He didn't want to turn to face her. Didn't want to be forced to choose a reaction, to see the hate in her eyes and feel guilty even though he had done nothing to earn it yet. He'd just watched the death of her parents, deaths she blamed him for… how did you react to something like that? 

But he couldn't hold off forever. Reluctance would be translated into responsibility for what he'd seen, though he wasn't sure how she thought he was responsible. He had to face her.

*******

She stared at him, careful to keep her expression in check, to keep the pain off of it, to keep the weakness out. She tried to will him to turn to face her, and finally he did. His emotions were guarded, but there were some traces of sympathy, some traces of compassion.

She crossed her arms over her chest. "Spare me the pity."

He looked hesitant. Then: "Dat was you."

"Why yes, how nice of you to notice." Sarcasm was her best defense with emotions this volatile, this precious.

Another hesitation. "Well, I'm sorry, chere, that dat happened to you… but… why did you show me it?"

She wanted to punch him, to slap him over and over until he got it into his thick skull, until he finally understood that it was all his fault. "Those men were hired by you."

Nothing. Then: "I'm sorry, chere"

But he wasn't. Not in the way she wanted, not because he thought he was responsible, but because he felt bad for her. He was looking at her with those unnatural red eyes trying to connect with her through sympathy, a sympathy she despised. A sympathy that sickened her for its trivialness, for its unimportance when it all came down to it, when it came down to the fact that her parents were dead and never coming back.

No. Not yet. She'd journeyed to this time for a reason. Here, they were not dead. Here, they had a chance.

"Don't you understand yet?" she asked him.

He watched her with wary eyes, long bangs falling into his them. Here, he was what he thought of himself as, and he obviously still identified with his hairstyle before his last run-in with Sinister. He was also wearing his traditional X-Men costume, fuchsia spandex, trenchcoat and all. Strange that he'd express himself this way when he had been so many others things in his life.

She took his silence as a negative response. "I came back here from the future to stop the War from happening. I was trained to do this. A whole organization was behind me, trusting me to fulfill my mission, to kill you. I can lock onto a person's consciousness and pull myself into them, leaving my own body behind." She paused to shrug in a very non-casual matter.

His arched eyebrows were crinkling his forehead. "So, can you enter anyone's body, even now?"

"No." She shook her head, frustrated with him. "Once I find a host and enter the mind my perception is blocked, except to detect my own body, and when I came here to the past those ties were broken too." Even as she said it she wondered why she was telling him all this. Why was it so important that he understand? Even now, when she had finally taken the control she should have taken when she first entered his body, she felt an obligation to him. It sickened and confused her all at once. Such was the price she had to pay for sharing a mind with another so closely that it felt like her own.

The demon eyes had a distant expression. He seemed to be thinking about something. He focused on her again. "You saved me in Antarctica, I know dat. But what about after Sinister?"

She scowled. Her cheeks felt hot and she was actually embarrassed. He had just pointed out her greatest moments of weakness, twice in one sentence.

He must have seen the confirmation in her expression. "You really don' have a connection t' Sinister, do you?"

She didn't answer again, not wanting to make this easy for him. She wasn't even sure why she was allowing him to ask so many questions.

"And m' power? I should be blowing up everyt'ing around me wit' my Omega capabilities unleashed. But I ain't." His voice was gaining force and confidence as the pieces slowly came together in his head. "Dat's your work, isn' it."

A pause.

"If I had my full powers, everybody around me would be in danger. Y' don' want nobody to get hurt. Dat's why when de injury in my arm almos' caused dat girl to die, y' healed me."

She could see the information empowering him, in his stature, his expression, hear it in his voice. He was feeling more comfortable now, not as off-balance as he was when he had no idea what was going on. She couldn't afford to let him feel confident because then he became dangerous. This had gone too far. He knew enough, enough to appease the part of her that felt connected to him, enough to be too much. "You are a danger whether you have your full powers or not."

He seemed to digest that for a moment, to consider how much of what she had said he believed, and how much he would take seriously. And then, with movements so fast and agile that only he could perform them, he dove toward her.

And touched her.

******

A quicksand of colors and feeling, images and impressions surrounded him, sucking him into another consciousness. He fought to hold onto his sense of self while the sense of another filled and encircled him. He had taken another gamble, knowing he had nothing left, seeing in her demeanor that she wasn't going to answer any more questions. But he'd needed to know.

Why?

Why had she allowed him to live? Everything she had told him and showed him indicated that there was no reason for her not to kill him.

She was everywhere, her essence surrounding him, pulling him in all different directions and showing him her whole life spread out at once, twirled into a winding strand stretching out in both directions. Any memory she had was at his easy reach, was right there for him to touch as he had touched her, was right there for him to make his own without her being able to do anything about it.

So, was he a rapist now?

Of all things Remy LeBeau had even been in life, and he had been quite a few things, he had never been a rapist.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. This was the future they were talking about, the survival of the X-Men. He knew she had told him the truth so far, could feel that much directly from their connection, but the puzzle still didn't fit together right, there were still those few pieces that refused to link up correctly.

He drifted along the winding string of memories, followed it back, looking for the cold, desolate, familiar chill that he would never forget. It wasn't hard to spot, standing out as a white spot on the timeline of colors, brighter because of its significance. He gravitated toward it, _willing_ that he should come closer to the memory until he was flowing into it with the essence of his mind to be overwhelmed by _her_, by her perception, her personality:

__

It's a strange feeling. She has never done this before, reached for a mind through time. It was really just a theory that she could do it at all. Until now.

She cannot feel the cold as she drifts over the desolate, white landscape of Antarctica searching for her target. She has no body with which to feel… Left that behind with everything else. But it will be worth it, she knows, and the excitement of being about to change history fills her.

Not history. Not in this time. Here, it is the future.

The XSE soldiers had done well to train her. Without them, she would have never thought this possible. All she'd even done with her power before was what the Witnesses' men had taught her. Enter a body for a limited amount of time and use the new perspective to direct the body's processes down to a cellular level, eliminating diseases, particularly the Plague. Be careful to be discrete. Be certain not to loose yourself in the host's mind. Remember how to get back to your own body. No more of that now. She has bigger goals.

He is close. She can feel it now. Somehow the XSE had developed the technology to reach through time themselves, and they had used the ability to gain an imprint of the young Witness' mind, to give her a target to latch onto.

And latch on she did. She smiles with phantom lips. He is here. Diving down, speeding in for the home stretch she slams into the body of a cold-blooded killer, a twisted man who would bring about the doom of the world…

…And lands in the mind of a desperate, regretful, tortured creature. His essence rushes over her. Pain, pain beyond the cold and the numbing hopelessness, pain inflicted by self-hate, by a loveless future, an empty heart. Repentance, for all the wrongs done, all the people killed, due to his inexperienced and foolish hands. A sense of loss and a yearning for his past life, for his family that he had betrayed and would never be a part of again.

The cold goes past the blue-hued surface of his bare skin. It goes to the very core of his being.

No thirst for blood. No lust for murder. No pleasure in the pain he has caused. No desire to bring about a horrible future.

No Witness. This is Remy LeBeau, a young, conscience-tortured man.

And as she settles into an empty space within his mind she too feels numb. This is not the person she has come to kill. It can't be.

His consciousness winds around her, twisting her with his need, filling her with his pain until it is her own and she is him for long enough that his instinct for self-preservation becomes hers...

So empty. He feels so empty. Her reaction is reflexive as she shares the need to fill that space, pouring her energy into it, filling his vacant reserves, forcing air into his frozen lungs and driving blood flow back past dying cells. 

It takes her a while to remember that she is not_ him, that she is a separate being with a distinctive mind. It takes her even longer to separate the two and remember who she _is_. What her mission is._

And then, to realize that she can't fulfil that mission. She hadn't anticipated how closely she would bond with his mind now that her body is so far away. She hadn't anticipated the rush of emotions not belonging to herself, the deep sense of who Remy LeBeau is.

And she hadn't anticipated finding an innocent man.

In this, his most vulnerable moment, with all the layers of protection and pretense stripped away, there is no hate for any but himself and there is regret for all the people he has ever hurt. And there is love. Love for a woman who has abandoned him, so strong it is able to burn even through the cold.

She'd never expected a killer could love.

Sinking into the spot in his mind where the future would one day reside, she feels an incredible sense of dismay, because she knows that she can't do it.

She isn't a cold-blooded killer.

******

He woke in the darkness, and for a moment he believed that he was in his room with the lights off, lying on his bed.

Strange that there would be fog in his room and that it would have a greenish tinge. He rolled over, moaning softly. There was a dull pounding in his head and a sense of scrambled thoughts. It must have been a hard day. Maybe he had gotten drunk. He couldn't remember.

There was a distant voice yelling at him. "Get up!" it exclaimed from far away. He rolled over again. No nausea. Maybe he wasn't drunk. The voice was getting more persistent, closer, and he wondered who it belonged to. It was angry and female. It yelled again. Not just angry, furious. Only one person he knew that had a temper like that. Rogue.

Maybe it might be a good idea to get up. He didn't want an ice-cold drop in the lake to be his wake up call.

He blinked. Once, twice. Still darkness. Were his eyes lingering closed? He tried again. Nothing. His specially adapted eyes should be able to cut through the dark like a cat. Was he blind?

There was still that fog clouding his view of nothing. Maybe he was dead.

"Get up now or you'll no longer have that option!!!"

He turned to the voice, keeping his eyes in what he thought was the open position. He was met by a green silhouette. A female silhouette. Slightly angular, more so than he remembered Rogue being, but still with the tell-tale curves. The hands were on the hips and she didn't look very happy. He wondered what he had done. No doubt, it was somehow his fault that she was angry.

He grinned. _Remy, you scoundrel, you._

"Stop smiling!" she shrieked. The green eyes were vivid in the shadows.

Had to be Rogue.

And then there was a sharp pain in his head, like an electric shock running through his skull and rattling around, sparking thought processes into ignition, shocking him into awareness.

The pain cut off abruptly and he sat up, gasping reflexively. The face staring at him was clearer now. Short black hair, young diamond-cut features. Not Rogue.

"Wha--?" he muttered weakly. "What happened?"

He briefly looked over his body, taking account that everything was still attached. He was dressed in his X-uniform, trench coat laid out on the floor under him. If the solid black surface could be called a floor. It was more of an emptiness that happened to be impermeable.

Her chiseled stare brought his focus back to her. "I suppose it's easy to forget stealing one's mind. It's in your nature. Not only are you a thief, but your girlfriend is a mind-raper too."

Shock, indignation, and then anger reached up in a knot in his throat. He came to his feet. "You better watch your words girl, or you ain't gonna have many more o' dem." Of course she knew exactly what to say to get him riled up. She lived in his mind. It was slowly coming back to him.

She laughed bitterly. The sound ended, cut short unnaturally. Her stare became steady. "I'd like to see you try."

He was silent, not exactly sure how he would carry through on his threat. He was startled to remember what had happened, him touching her, falling into her mind, Antarctica… The reason she hadn't killed him. Some of his anger softened.

"Y' left me no choice. I needed t' know why you let me live an' you weren't going to tell me de answer."

She scoffed. "_I_ left _you_ no choice? Just like you, Witness, take what you want without considering the people you hurt to do it."

"You know dat's not true," he said softly. "Else, you wouldn't have saved me."

She took her turn at silence.

He decided to push the point. "You wanted me t' understand. Didn't you? Now I do."

Her head shook slowly. "You understand nothing," she hissed.

No one said anything for a while. He wasn't sure how long. There was no concept of time here. He considered closing the distance between them, but after the way he had just violated her, he decided that might not be the best idea. He took a breath. "I ain't de Witness, an' you know it. I ain't de man dat killed your parents."

She scowled at him and added, "Yet."

"Non." He shook his head. "It don' have to be dat way. Not now. You came back t' change t'ings, and jus' by you being here de future may be different."

"'_May_ be different?' That's not good enough. I need an absolution. I can't take the chance." Black, straight strands fell across her face. Her arms were crossed and her weight rested evenly on both legs.

"You have an absolution. You have my word. I ain't gonna let myself become de Witness, not after what you showed me." He hoped his words were as coaxing as he'd intended. He hoped they sounded true, as true as he believed they were.

A scoff. A laugh. And then a straight face. It was disconcerting the way she did that. "I'm sure I can trust you."

She knew him. She knew him better than anybody ever had. And she hated him more than anybody, but even she had to admit there was a shred of decency in him. "You don' have to trust me. You jus' have to look at me. Your mind is linked to mine. You know I'm telling de truth. I know you can feel it, jus' like I can feel de pain from you."

That stunted her. A pause, then finally, suspiciously: "What do you propose?"

"An alliance."

Her head tilted with a sardonic look.

"I listen to your warnings. No more jobs with New Son. An' I do de best I can to make sure de future you know doesn' happen." He shrugged. "Dat's all I can offer."

She seemed to consider. "It may be too late. You just finished a job for New Son." Disgust, dripping over the words.

"Den we in hot water already. Paralyzing me ain't gonna help. I can' do anyt'ing to undo the damage looking up at the ceiling o' my room."

"No, you can't." Her eyes flashed, and she paused a moment to think. "You will never touch me again, or you will go to sleep and never wake up. Do we understand each other?"

He nodded. "Oui, perfectly."

"Watch your step, Rapist." She smiled wickedly. "I'm watching, I'm always watching."

He never got the chance to react to the threat. Cotton filled his head, the fog thickened and her body became a silhouette that soon faded with the rest. And then he was traveling through the road of his mind to blessed consciousness.

*******

She'd cut a deal with the Witness. She would have never thought it would come to that when she had accepted this mission to come back in time. She would have never thought herself so weak.

She cringed. He had touched her, entered her mind uninvited. She felt dirty, vulnerable, like her whole life had been rolled out for the enemy to see. She rubbed her arms, trying to get rid of the grimy feeling, as she left the dream-state fading behind her. Time to go back to her corner of his mind. 

Maybe she had just been abused so much in life that she was used to it. Maybe she didn't know how to react anymore, how to fight back. Maybe she had been broken.

She'd cut a deal with the Witness. What was she thinking? How could his mind really have so much influence over her?

Sometimes she wondered who she was, who she had been. Sometimes she forgot.

__

Please, Mom, Dad, forgive me if I'm wrong. 

Forgive me if I've made a mistake. 

She felt so tired, coming off the peak of her confrontations with the object of her nightmares. So tired.

And in the night of another's mind, her form slowly diffused, spreading a gentle, calm green mist.

__

End Part 9


	10. Part 10, Interlude

****

Part 10, Interlude 1

Jacob Gavin Jr. closed the door of the office behind him firmly, breathing a sigh of relief timed with the action. He stood there for a moment, sweaty palm still on the doorknob, recollecting the scattered pieces of himself, before he pushed off and walked down the hall, a calm, business-like mask covering his face. The stride was swift and clipped, practiced to exude a sense of authority and confidence. It was all part of the disguise of course.

Jake was far from confident or calm at the moment.

He was in fact, quite unsure and afraid.

Nodding at the occasional passing white collar as he made his way through the office building's corridor, he tried to reach the elevator as quickly as he could without looking like he was in a rush. Faces passed him, polite but not caring, having no idea of the monster that worked among them, living their routine, mundane lives with no idea of the hands that passed behind the scenes.

But he knew. He always knew. It was the price of being a messenger.

Jake had grown up a rich boy, supported by the crime that surrounded his world. Born into a life where everyone was two faced, hiding ulterior motives behind supposedly benign intents so that when his mutant shape shifting power manifested itself, it only seemed a natural adaptation to his environment. His parents had money, and more importantly connections, to everybody from the Mafia to the petty mercenaries moving stolen goods on the streets, so he was saved from the brunt of the deception and usage that might have been directed at him. Somehow, that had never really made him feel safer.

He could have gone legitimate, could have escaped that world of fun-house mirrors. His parents had a respectable front, making a large portion of their money from good honest work, but they couldn't watch over him forever and there was always the worry that some enemy of his parents might go after him for vengeance.

His parents had a lot of enemies.

So in the end, he had really had no choice. The cops were corrupt, and what was he going to do anyway? Walk up to a blue uniformed man directing traffic and say "Hey, Mr. Officer, um, could you help me? My parents are into the crime world and I'm worried one of their competitors will come after me. Do you think you can help me with that?" Yeah, that would go over well.

The only people who could protect him were more criminals, ones that would make sure to protect their employees. As long as he did his job as Courier, he had a certain amount of insurance, and a certain amount of comfort.

It wasn't much, but it was something.

A pretty blond with short hair and a conservative dark blue suit smiled at him in a manner a little too friendly for a casual greeting. He smiled back, almost forgetting to return the flirtatious look in his distraction. Girls usually found him cute, in a boyish way, and he usually played off of that, winking easily and enjoying the attention. But never, ever, letting it get too personal. He'd already been dragged into this life. He wouldn't drag someone else in with him.

Not that he regretted who he was. Everybody dreamed of being something else, but where others angsted over what they couldn't be, he accepted it. He was what he was, which was a pretty broad statement considering that he could change his form to be whatever he wanted. It was quite a fun power to play around with, and quite useful.

But right now, he wasn't particularly at ease with his job. There was always some anxiety, a basic proponent of his nature. Now there was all out terror. He stuck his hands in his pant pockets, wiping the sweat off of them on the rich fabric.

The elevator was full, teeming with resentfully patient employees trapping copies of the _New York Times_ under their arms and muttering trivial conversation to each other. Jake stepped in, the last to make it, pressed against a large man with thick glasses and an obviously forgetful nature when it came to wearing deodorant.

As if the city didn't smell bad enough already.

It wasn't until Jake was walking out of the skyscraper into the shadows of 40-story buildings that he relaxed even a degree.

New Son. He had been just another crime boss until recently, nothing too exciting. A lot of the bosses had nicknames and his had come simply because he was the newest son of a formerly successful, and deceased crime lord, to take over the business. The other three elder siblings had all died of tragic and "unfortunate accidents". Nothing surprising there. Same story Jake had heard plenty of times before. Of course, this guy knew what he was doing, which was why Jake had chosen him as an employer, and which was why he hadn't yet followed in the footsteps of his brothers six feet under. New Son had had his eye on Gambit for a long time, seeing the "Master Thief" title as quite a valuable asset if he could control it. Obviously, New Son had figured out how to.

Jake shrugged his shoulders, trying to loosen up the tight muscles there and walking down the street to the avenue where he knew he'd find an abundant resource of Cabbies.

New Son _had_ been just another crime boss--'_had'_ being the operative word in that sentence. Because, since New Son had left for his vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, there had been marked changes in his personality—and dealings. Strange requests for strange jobs had come… Suddenly, there was a deep interest in all mutants in the New York area, or in the lives of little children up in Michigan who would suddenly disappear soon afterwards under mysterious circumstances. Quick, to the point telephone conversations, more so than usual, the desperate, hungry voice on the other line commanding him to do its bidding, almost not sounding human.

Probably because it wasn't human. Not anymore. Jacob Gavin Jr. was not sure exactly how, but the man he had just had a meeting with was not the man that had hired him.

That man had never been psychic.

Jake had never really had access to the psionic plane, but he had made sure to hire very… talented and skilled specialists to put safeguards up in his mind that would keep most intruders from going very deep into it. He'd paid big money for that little enhancement which had done its job so far, and as a result, he was met with a kind of pins-and-needles tingling in his forehead whenever those safeguards were being triggered.

He had a headache now from all the tingling that had been going on in that office, New Son sitting with a blank expression and speaking with a cold voice from behind the expensive desk, completely empty of papers and evidence of work. It was all wrong. The man was all wrong.

And his interest in the Mutant Registration Bill felt wrong too. Oh, the cover story was clean, shiny, and spotless with a lemon-fresh scent. Politician in debt trades his political leverage for much needed monetary value. But that's all it was—a cover story. It wasn't right. What did New Son care about Mutant Registration? And did it have something to do with him suddenly being a mutant? For some reason, the monster he'd just met didn't seem to be the type to care about mutant rights, even if he was one.

Jake reached the corner and waved down the next cab to pass. Of course, that one was full, as were the next two, and finally, on his forth try he got one to pull over, driven by a tan-skinned man with decent English.

"Westchester County," Jake said calmly, "will you go that far?"

The fare ended up getting doubled for such a lengthy trip, but Jake simply nodded and leaned back in the vinyl seat, sighing deeply. He patted the envelope with the floppy disk inside that sat securely in his inside breast pocket and wondered why New Son insisted on such archaic storage for this particular transaction, when a CD would last much longer and be much more convenient. Maybe that was the point, he realized suddenly.

He wasn't sure. Wasn't sure of much right now. All he knew was that his job was to pay Remy another visit. Hopefully he could figure a little more out between here and 1407 Graymalken Lane.


	11. Part 11

****

Part 11

It was dark when he ventured outside for a jog, though that wasn't saying much since winter in Salem Center meant it got dark about 4:30pm. He had been amazed to find, when he finally woke up, that he had only been gone into his mind for about an hour. Nobody had even realized his dilemma. If he was lucky, maybe even Jean had missed the ripples on the psionic plane. He was still new to all this mind stuff—he had no idea what was detectable to a telepath. 

The cold air ripped through his lungs as he ran through the trails. He could still feel the raspiness left over from his pneumonia, the ragged edges. It had been months since Antarctica, and he still wasn't completely recovered. Maybe he never would be. Maybe he was scarred for life.

It wouldn't be the first time.

There was a lot for him to think about, too much actually, and that was exactly why he was out here jogging under the rising moon. His mind was tired, and this was the best way for him to clear it completely of any thought except for the rhythm of his breathing and the quiet thumping of his steps.

He stretched his legs into a longer stride, speeding up slightly and remembering his training when he was a teenager learning to be a thief. Jean Luc had always been a hard worker and had been sure to teach his son the same ethic. It hadn't been until he was about 12 that Jean Luc adopted him and by 13 he had already undergone vigorous acrobatic training, giving him his trademark fighting style that was distinguished by summersaults, flips, and flying kicks. When he was only 15 he was running a four-mile obstacle course with weights on each arm and leg. 

He'd hated it at first, complaining constantly, but after a while the complaints were motivated more out of tradition that actual annoyance. If living on the streets had taught him anything, it had been that laziness would get you killed and every new skill you could gain would increase your chances at life. As much as he would work at putting on the façade of nonchalance, he never once allowed himself to slack off on a job.

Well, maybe once or twice. He remembered the time he decided to switch the normal weights with Styrofoam look-a-likes. It had all gone well and he had had quite a pleasurable and blissfully easy run when his father decided to join him for the last mile. Needless to say, close up, and especially to a thief's eye, the Styrofoam didn't hold up well. He'd ended up running an extra two miles that day with double the normal weights.

A wind hit him and Remy squinted against it, pushing harder with the muscles in his legs. He could feel the lactic acid building up, burning against the work, but he ignored it. He still had a long way to go before he was back in the shape he had once been in, and until he was there, he would keep pushing. The wind passed, and he eased back into a steady stride. 

The lake was growing closer, peacefully reflecting moonshine in the night. If it hadn't been so cold he might have gone for a late night swim, but as it was, a thin film of treacherous ice covered the water. The lights were off in the boathouse and Remy figured that Scott and Jean must be spending the evening at the mansion. He remembered Scott telling him earlier in the day about their plans to use Cerebro to search for the Shadow King tonight. Remy knew he was doing it only to appease Betsy, and perhaps for his own curiosity. There were too many other problems for the X-Men to worry about to make it necessary to search for villains to fight. Especially, when those villains didn't appear to be presently active. It also wasn't likely that Cerebro would find anything, not unless Shadow King was real close. The unit the team had borrowed from Muir Island to replace the one stolen by Bastion didn't have the range that the X-Men once had the luxury of using. But then, they had been surprised once when they had found Sinister. Of course, he'd intended for them to find him.

Maybe Remy would stop in later and see how the search was going. But right now, he needed some time alone.

__

"You're never alone, you know."

He almost tripped in reaction to the voice that had suddenly popped into his head. "What?" he questioned aloud.

__

"You heard me."

It took him a moment to recognize the speaker as the Green Ghost Lady. She'd never spoken in his mind like this before, not while he was conscious. It was a very strange and unnerving feeling, like somebody had pushed his own mind over to make the needed space for another. Before he hadn't noticed her presence really interfering with his own, but now… Was this how it felt for Rogue when she absorbed another personality and it threatened to overthrow her own?

"What are y' doing?" he tried to shove her over some, mentally.

She pushed back. _"I'm making sure you don't make any mistakes."_

He was still running, but had slowed some. "Oh, now it makes sense." He was getting very tired of her taking over parts of his body and his sarcasm was evidence of that.

__

"It should. From this high up on the surface of your mind I can make sure you don't do anything stupid."

"I t'ink I got a headache."

__

"You didn't have one before?"

"Oui, but it just got a whole lotta worse." He reached up to rub his offending temples and ran into an overhanging branch he didn't see. It almost knocked him over and he had to stagger to keep his balance. The branch had hit him in the shoulder and he stopped, rubbing it angrily. The wind blew gently, chilling his hand and rustling the leaves of the trees around him. Déjà vu. These trails seemed bent on knocking him over whenever they got the chance.

"T'anks for de warning, cherie. I t'ought you were here t' make sure I don't do anyt'ing stupid."

__

"I'll amend that statement. I'm here to make sure you don't do anything stupid that will hurt others. You are welcome to hurt yourself all you want." She sounded suspiciously smug.

He scowled at the empty air in front of him. "I appreciate de freedom y' give me." Sarcasm was becoming quite popular for him lately.

He felt her smile in his mind, an expression followed by a parade of chills running up and down the hairs on his back. That was perhaps the spookiest thing she had done yet. You're not supposed to _feel_ someone smile.

Rolling his shoulder to ward off the pain inflicted by the branch, he began to move again. "We never agreed to this," he said quietly between breaths.

__

"I said I would do everything in my power to make sure the future doesn't happen."

Remy scowled, not sure what he could really do to change the situation. He stared at the little puffs of smoke his breath made in the air. "You know cherie, y' really got some issues with invading ot'er people's space."

__

"And you tend to hurt the people you love. Everyone has their faults."

Ouch. That was vicious. He decided that he was done talking to little voices in his head for now. Maybe if he just ignored her, she would go away. 

He heard her laugh malevolently in response.

The trail was looping around now, bringing him back toward the mansion. He could feel the diffusion of emotions growing closer, a central hub, alive and full of energy that he could sense on multiple levels. Now he was monitoring the overhangs ahead of him with his spatial sense, feeling around with invisible hands to avoid further pain at the expense of distraction. It was like the space all around him existed in panoramic inside his mind, trees swaying gently, dirt spraying up under his feet. He had to admit; it felt good, the release of his powers, of contained energy, which was exactly the reason he rarely let himself use multiple powers so freely like this. It felt too good, too tempting to just relax and enjoy his generating and conducting abilities… there was always that fear in the back of his mind that he would go too far, that permanent still-life of the Seattle Theater etched in his memory. Then it had been painful, as it had been in Sinister's laboratory when he blew it up, but that didn't comfort him much. There was a very fine threshold between pleasure and pain, as contrasting as they might appear to be.

She was laughing at him again. _"Philosophical, aren't we?"_

He didn't reply. Instead he stared harder at his surrounding, narrowing the use of his spatial sense. Some of the perception of the trails around him went dim. The trees were rough and damp from the moist winter weather of the northeast, and bare. Something caught his eye as he passed the mottled bark of one and he stopped suddenly to take a closer look. Three claw marks, deep and each separated by about a knuckle's width, gouged the wood. Remy examined them carefully, knowing that they could be only Wolverine's and trying to ascertain the emotion behind them. But, if the marks had any story to tell, they didn't tell it to him.

He ran on, realizing that it had been a day or two since he'd even seen Wolverine. It really wasn't that odd, since, like himself, Wolverine could easily be classified a wanderer.

Remy wondered if there was beer wherever Wolverine was now. He could sure use one.

There was a flare-up in his spatial sense, above him and relatively close. His empathic ability told him it was friendly and he knew who she was before she even called out his name.

"Hey Rougie," he greeted, slowing to a stop as she landed beside him. He started walking to keep from slowing his heart rate too quickly and she fell into step beside him.

He noticed she was in uniform and decided that he was very thankful to the man (it had to have been a man) who had invented spandex.

"Hey Remy," she paused, collecting her next sentence. "Ah heard ya yappin' as Ah was approachin' a little bit ago. Who were yah talkin' to?" She eyed him, generally curious and partly daring him to tell her the truth. He hated when she did that, but there wasn't a time he could remember when she did fully and completely trust him. Except maybe once… the moment before the Crystal Wave hit and they kissed for the first time…

"Not'ing to worry y'self over. Jus' de little voices in my head."

She eyed him for a moment, and then either decided that she believed him or that it wasn't worth pursuing at the moment. Probably the latter. He refused to let himself use his empathy to find out. "Sounds like a personal problem," she said, some annoyance seeping through.

"It is."

He regretted the words the moment after they left his overactive lips. "Sorry, mah cherie. Old habit," he added, hoping to soften the reflexive reply.

She just shrugged and shook her head, auburn and ivory waves swaying gently. "Whatever, Rem." She wasn't in the mood to fight, or else he knew she wouldn't have let it go that easily, which meant, something more important must be on her mind.

He watched her for a moment, trying to read the expression that the moonshine danced over and played with. She seemed to be made of stone, pale and perfectly carved and he wondered how his own face must look in this light, whether his eyes were frightening against such a wan white cast over by the night sky. _Diablo Blanc._ The words rang in his head so that he wasn't sure if he had mentally whispered them or the being living amongst his inner thoughts had.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Ah came out here ta bring ya back to the mansion. Scott's holdin' a meeting. There are some… things going on in the city."

Remy raised his eyebrows. "T'ings?"

Rogue turned her emerald eyes on him. "Logan just got back from there. It's pretty bad. Murder up to insane amounts, unnatural amounts of violence, road rage, all in one isolated area. It's all over the news. We think its Shadow King."

"An' de search wit' Cerebro? Did you try to locate him?"

"That was the first thing we did, as soon as Logan called the mansion and told us to turn on the news, and as soon as we started hearing the reports. Nothing. Jean says its like there is a big static spot sittin' bird's eye right over the city. She can't get through it on the astral plane."

He nodded, the only reaction he really could give. They were X-Men, supposedly used to this stuff, keeping their composure no matter what happened. He didn't know about the rest of them, but he sure had never gotten the knack of getting used to it. But, he could pretend.

Just like he knew Rogue was pretending, else they would have been in the process of a full-out fight about those voices from earlier by now.

__

"Fighting over me? How sweet."

__

Shut up, he thought angrily. She did that mental smile thing again and he had a hard time keeping his reaction off his face.

"Den I guess we better get back as soon as we can." Remy started running again, to speed their progress, trusting that Rogue would be able to keep up.

She did more that that. Feeling her fly up behind him, her gloved hands and sleeved arms came around his chest, holding him tightly. His feet left the ground and he relaxed them, sinking his body into her embrace.

"Flyin' is fastah," she said unnecessarily as they rose above the trees. He reached up and covered her hands with his own and watched the ground fall from under him. The wind felt cold but was, for once, more like caressing fingers than stabbing knives. They weren't that high, not needing to go very far, but it was still exhilarating. The trees disappeared and then they were sliding over the yellowed lawn, the green sucked away by the chill. The mansion door grew before them, the portal into the headquarters of what the world would consider one of the most dangerous mutant terrorist groups in existence.

Just a piece of wood carved in an ornate fashion befitting a mansion. Funny it could mean so much in some ways.

They came to the ground just in front of the steps, landing so gently that he could almost believe he had never left the contact of the earth. Her arms stayed around him for just a moment more than necessary before she pulled them away.

__

"She dies too you know. All of them do." The voice was contemplative this time, and he thought that maybe the Green Ghost was talking to herself rather than him.

__

"No, I'm talking to you too. Remember what's at stake."

__

How can I forget? 'Specially wit' you remindin' me alla time, he thought back.

His mind-mate didn't reply.

"Thank you fah riding the Rogue express. Ya'll come back now."

He turned to see Rogue half-smile in the halo cast by the mansion lights. She looked a little more real here, a little more lifelike. "An' what if I never leave?" He smirked slightly. They needed to have some fun, especially in times like these. It was the only thing that would keep them sane.

She tossed her hair out of her face. "Well that wouldn't be fair ta all the other customers, now would it?"

He gave her his best hurt expression. "An' here I was, thinkin' I was de only one."

"Don't flatter yourself, sugah, it might go to yah head." She grinned at her own joke and he chuckled softly.

But then the amusement died and the door of the mansion stared down at them, beckoningly. A knowing look was passed and they both turned to climb the stairs, Remy in the lead. He heard Rogue cough behind him, sounding very much like she had a cold.

"You okay, cherie?" he threw over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she answered.

It occurred to him that he didn't remember Rogue ever being sick before. It was strange that she would be now. Maybe it was just something in the air he decided, to dismiss the thought quickly and satisfy his question without considering it further. Because there was no more time to consider.

In front of him the heavy mansion door was opening.

******

They were sitting around the large metal table of the war room, the whole team, fully assembled and in costume except for him. Apparently, they had been alerted to the situation some time ago. He wondered why he had been the last to find out.

A few heads turned to watch him as he and Rogue entered, following Storm, who had led them in, briefing Remy on the lift ride down.

The heads soon returned their attention to the central point of interest in the room: a large TV screen that made up almost a full wall. It had been a fairly recent addition to the mansion, the latest attempt to rebuild what Bastion had taken. Six different channels were playing at once, each on its own equally partitioned space and all showing pictures of street brawls, multiple car pile-ups and other acts of violence dictated by animated, perfectly groomed reporters in pressed blazers. Closed captioned words ran across the bottom of each screen, but the audio was one voice reporting the tragedy: Trish Tilby.

Remy took the middle of three empty seats, Rogue sitting in the one on his left, Storm on his right. Across the steely table was a disheveled looking Wolverine. Of course, the Canadian always looked a bit on the messy, scruffy side, but now he was looking particularly so. According to Storm, he had just come back from the city, and though he hadn't been in the location where the enigma of violence was occurring, it had taken a lot to just get home through all the panic that was currently clogging the roads.

"This is Trish Tilby reporting from Cooper Square a few blocks away from the main concentration of violence." Remy looked up at the wide screen to see the reporter screaming into a microphone to be heard over the sirens and yelling all around her. "There has been no explanation as of now to the cause of this strange phenomenon and police are not answering our questions except to say that they have everything under control. Again, if you are just tuning in, there has been an isolated "bubble of crime" as it has become nicknamed, occurring in the vicinity of Greenwich Village. There have been reports of murders, fights, raiding, all unconfirmed. Police are not letting us into the area and there has been no word as to what started all of this…"

The sound cut off, replaced by white, black boxed words that skipped across the screen in spurts of energy. Scott stood, putting down the remote control and Remy could feel the attention of the room focussing on the team leader. A soft voice whispered across the surface of his mind, feeling more like a shiver than sound, _"It's happening…"_ And then his ghost was silent.

"Now that we're all here, we can discuss our plan of action." The red visor fell on each of them in turn as he spoke. "We've obviously got a very hostile situation that needs to be neutralized as quickly as possible. But that's pretty much all we know for sure." He paused momentarily for effect.

"What we suspect is that Shadow King is involved. His name has just been coming up too much lately for it to be coincidence. Besides Betsy's recent concerns, this type of unexplained violence goes along perfectly with what we know of him. And according to Jean, there is a spot over New York that is blocked from her on the astral plane. Only a psychic would be capable of something like that and Shadow King is a psychic.

"So far, that's all the info we've got. Would anybody like to add?" The ruby quartz scoped the room.

"Yeah." Eyes went to Wolverine. He waited for them all to get there and then: "The streets are a mess right now close to Greenwich so we ain't goin' to be able to get anywhere from the ground. I don't think that a bunch of mutants in tight spandex are going to calm anybody's nerves right now. We're liable to start a riot. Meaning, we're going to have to fly in."

"And we ain't got the Blackbird since Bastion came so we're going ta have ta do it the old fashion way," Rogue finished, swiveling gently back and forth in her chair.

"Unless Hank's found a way to make us sprout wings," came the gruff Canadian reply.

Scott nodded. "Alright, we've got three flyers—"

"No Scott, we don't." Jean looked up and Remy saw for the first time how uneasy her expression looked, how worry had etched deep lines into her skin. "There is no reason to think that we won't be affected by Shadow King's control once we get too close. I'm going to need all of my energy to protect us from that. I don't know if I'll have anything left over for telekinesis. He's strong. I can feel it."

There was silence.

"Well, dat presents a problem, now don't it?"

"Only if you're not willing to see the solution, Traitor." His glance shot to Marrow, sitting unnoticed across from him and a few chairs over. Her eyes locked with his and then narrowed daringly. "We can take the tunnels. No traffic there. Nothing ta stop us but ghosts."

No one said anything for a moment, and then, because he felt like it was his responsibility to do so, Remy replied, "She's right. Dat's de best way in. We can take de cars most o' de way an' den drop down into de sewers once we get close."

"If we get caught down there and something happens we will have no way out." Remy turned to see Storm shaking her head. "I do not think we should corner ourselves that way when there is so little we know about the situation."

"Why? Scared, Windrider?" A malicious grin settled comfortably on Marrow's lips.

"No." The answering gaze was ice blue and direct, delicate white eyebrows firmly set.

"Look," Scott interrupted. "I don't see what other choice we have given the circumstances. Unless anybody has another suggestion?" He left the question hanging in the air for a moment but no one reached up to grab it. "Then the tunnels it is. There is a lot we still don't know so that means that we handle this situation with as much caution as possible. Until we know exactly what the threat is, we'll have no idea what to expect. I want everybody to meet out front in the garage in 10 minutes, full armor and civilian clothes over. We'll split up into cars then. Any questions?"

There was a general shaking of heads. The leader stood poised a few more moments for good measure, and then: "Okay. Dismissed."

********

He was back in his room and he was shivering as he changed into his armor, sliding on spandex and strapping on metal knee guards. She was eerily quiet in his mind, but the static of her unease was deafening. He got the sense that she was afraid that everything that was falling apart and she could do nothing to stop it.

__

We've faced Shadow King plenty of times before. It don' mean de world's gonna end.

She didn't reply. He wondered if she really was just being paranoid.

And then there was the flair up in his spatial sense, and that was the first thing that alerted him to the fact that he was not alone. The second was the sound of the window opening and someone landing heavily inside. Heavy blankets muffled the emotions of the mind that owned the sounds and movement. Familiar blankets. Remy didn't look up.

"Hi Jake."

"Ouch. You know, I think I bruised myself coming down your stupid storm pipe. Hey, nice spandex. Not many guys can pull off wearing hot pink."

"It's fuchsia."

"Uh-huh." He didn't sound convinced.

There was a loud click as Remy clamped down the buckle on his boot. He stood, reaching for his trenchcoat where it lay on his bed. His eyes finally came to Jake standing in a ruffled expensive-looking suit and staying half in the shadows. "How'd you get in here? Past de security and de cameras?"

"Not hard to, you know. It's nice being a shape shifter. I can look like any X-Man I wish, and unless somebody actually decides to examine the video tape, they won't notice the difference."

The trenchcoat came on with a satisfying 'swish', worn fabric flowing softly against his legs. "Cerebro constantly scans for bio signs. It woulda picked up yours as not belonging."

Jake shook his head smugly. "Nope, not if the computer doesn't find any bio signs to register. I paid quite a bit of money to make me appear virtually dead to any computer or medical device. It better work well."

"Nice." Remy nodded approvingly. "Look, we both know y' ain't here for a social visit. Tell New Son I'm not doin' anymore jobs for him. The debt's paid. I'm done."

He waited for Jake's reaction, for a threat to be thrown at him or some other form of persuasion. It never came.

"Good. So am I."

He couldn't help the expression of surprise that reached his features, feeling his eyebrows rise. "Job not payin' enough, Jakey?"

"I wish that were the reason. Let's just leave it at this: my employer has become… unstable, and it's time for me to move on." Jake's countenance betrayed nothing as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a sealed manila envelope. "Take this. It's your last delivery to the Congressman."

"I t'ought you said you were done working for New Son."

"I am. Almost. Once I decide exactly how to terminate business. Whether you deliver the envelope or not is up to you. I'm just the messenger."

Remy walked over to the dresser, took out two packs of cards and slipped them into the holsters on his belt. "What's in it?"

"A disk. That's all I know."

"You really are jus' de messenger."

"Too dangerous being anything more."

Remy nodded, looking at Jake as he threw the envelope onto the bed. Through the window behind him Remy could see the sky darkening into black, dusk fading away.

"I'd like to stay and chat Jake, but dere's a crisis in de city I got t' attend to." He picked up the envelope and stuck it in the inside pocket of his trenchcoat, snapping a flap closed over it. This wasn't the kind of stuff he wanted to leave out for someone to find.

"Really? Going to play Superhero?" Jake smirked slightly, as if the idea amused him.

"Yup. Seems Greenwich is getting a bit violent."

Jake tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. "Funny, I was over in that area earlier today for a meeting."

"Jake, if dat's what y' find to be funny, y' need to get out more. I trust you can find your way out?"

He bowed extravagantly. "With my eyes closed." He stood again. "Just as long as your storm pipe doesn't try to kill me again."

"See ya, Jake," he threw over his shoulder as he turned toward the door.

"Have fun, Remy."

The lock clicked quietly as he pulled the doorknob behind him and left the room. There was a voice in his head as he walked down the hall to his rendezvous point with the team. _"Don't you dare think of delivering that letter."_ He'd been waiting for her to interject with some foreboding comment since the moment Jake arrived. He hadn't expected her to hold out so long before delivering it.

__

Non, cherie. M' New Son dealing days are numbered.

He patted the breast of his trenchcoat where he knew the envelope was safe. _Dis little pup ain't leavin' Remy's possession._

But as he reached the bottom of the stairs he could feel her tension refusing to ease and because he and her were now one, he could feel her fear that this might be the start of the events that led to the end in her world. It didn't matter that they were going to fight Shadow King and not New Son, the man she had always believed would play a key role in the start of the Great War. The anxiety was still there, the looming threat that she might have failed. He had the sense of an hourglass quickly loosing sand in his mind and she knew there were only a few precious grains left.

She'd heard the news coming out of Greenwich, sat quietly in his mind and absorbed it all.

And no matter how she thought of it, it sounded too much like home.

__

End Part 11


	12. Part 12

**Part 12**

He was free.

And he was loving it, energized by the primal song of the roaring engine beneath him, like some deep pulsing melody that resonated down through his bones to the very nature of his being. There was the speed of the air whipping around him, sliding over his body more intimately and shamelessly than any lover could. Kinetic energy filled and surrounded him, bathing him in power and life.

Lowering his body down to streamline himself against the motorcycle, he leaned smoothly around a curve in the deserted back-road. Adrenaline laced his cells, driving out the chills, the thick air of the crisp and cool evening running through the fabric of his trench coat, the pores of his skin—filling the very holes in his heart so that he could be whole… if only for a little while.

No expectations, no requirements, no commitments.

Only speed, only energy, only life. And Remy smiled, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see Wolverine mirroring his movements next to him, looking more content than Remy ever remembered seeing him. He felt it too. They really were a lot alike when it came down to their basic nature, desires, loves. Needs.

He needed this, to drink in the kinetic energy like a drug so precious that no amount of money could ever buy it. Breaking the boundaries of his normal restraint and anxiety about losing control, he pushed his spatial sense out farther than he normally dared, feeling, knowing, being the space ahead of him. If he and Wolverine were going to scout ahead, looking out for the car full of X-Men following behind, they were going to make sure nothing caught them by surprise.

And that was it. The pin that popped the bubble of exhilaration, of ecstasy. There were expectations, requirements, commitments. There always were. He was bound by the sense of honor and responsibility that the little voice in his head, much more powerful than the Green Mist that permeated through him, insisted on. He wasn't free. He had a destination, a cause to fight for, a team he was committed to. The little voice named his "conscience" liked to remind him of that frequently.

It occurred to him then, with the trees and houses flashing by him and the road a blur beneath his feet, that he didn't even know the name of the other voice that occupied his brain. It had seemed fine to designate her the Green Ghost Lady when he was still in denial over how powerful she was, how much a part of him she was, then the impersonal name had seemed like an assurance that she couldn't be of much significance. But now…?

_It might be a little late for dis, cherie, but what is your real name?_

For a moment there was no reply and for a moment he thought there would be none. And then: _"You already know. We share a mind. There are no secrets."_

_You can't jus' answer de question like a normal person, can you cherie?_

"_Well, technically, I'm not all that normal."_ And then she smiled, and for the first time it didn't drive rigid pins and needles into the hairs on his back.

He realized he knew. That the answer had always been there, waiting for him to open up and receive it. Her name was resonating through the walls of his mind, echoing, bouncing across its reaches, and as it passed he caught it on the tip of his tongue.

"Emily. Your name is Emily."

"_Disappointed? Sorry it doesn't meet your expectations."_ Her usual sarcasm was back.

_Non. Just… unexpected. I t'ought—I mean, I figured—Well, it's so normal. I expected, something… _He trailed off, what did he expect?

_"Something more tragic?"_

Maybe that was it. Or maybe:_ I guess I thought it would be more unusual—you are from de future._

She made an irritated noise. _"Not that far in the future. Besides, life in the future, at least technology-wise is more similar to your past than present." _

He raised his eyebrows, confused.

"_Fighting a war doesn't leave much time for luxuries, or for inventing them. Society was forced to revert slightly."_

He remembered the visions in his mind, seeing her parents killed by the Witness' henchmen. He remembered how non-futuristic the room had looked.

He leaned even more into the bike.

"Hey, Gumbo!" Remy barely heard Wolverine's voice over the roar of the engines. He looked over to the other man. "You're thinking too much. I can see it in those delicate, baby-faced features of yours. Enjoy the ride!"

Remy smiled at the jibe and shook his head. "De way I see it, you better be de one enjoying de ride, cause it gonna be your last wit' remarks like dat. 'Sides, dese 'delicate, baby-faced features' can catch more femmes dan you any night." He smirked, a footnote to the comment.

"Oh, really?" They were riding close together now, motorcycles almost touching so that Remy could hear Wolverine, Remy not blessed with the other man's animal sensitive hearing. "I hold you to that, Cajun. When this is over, there's a little bar I know, the perfect place to find out for sure."

Remy laughed and steered back to the other side of the lane. He could see the bright lights of the New York skyline approaching a short distance away, slightly painful to his sensitive eyes when contrasted to the oncoming night.

They were close. Just over the bridge now.

And then into the tunnels.

**Interlude**

Hungry. Always so hungry. A deep gnawing pain that, without any internal organs to inflict itself upon, struck at his very being, twisted like a dull knife in the core of his existence. It took everything in its reach, had eaten his conscience long ago and was now working on those of everyone around him.

Hate. Anger. Prejudice. He drank it all up in a cocktail of negative emotion. He was made of energy—pure, raw, and it required sustenance, a replacement of resources. Life tasted good in all forms, but all beings have their preference of foods, his was the black feelings, the dark sides of the human spirits he devoured.

He had taken this body, this man called "New Son" by his associates, after wandering in a delirious and emaciated haze. So much endless time trapped on the psionic plane, starving slowly in an iron prison of Psylocke's will. Maybe he would have died had he not suddenly been set free to wander across a young and volatile criminal with his eye on the talents of the X-Men.

The X-Men. The entities responsible for trapping him in the emptiness with nothing but the hunger to slowly chew away at his own spirit to keep satisfied.

That was the thought that had reached out through the dumb haze of malnutrition like a tether through the fog, as he drifted blind and deaf through the city ablaze with the lights of millions of chaotic minds. This one man, New Son, thinking that he had an X-Man in his grasp, a new tool to use, to exploit the world for all the money that was his own food of choice. Not the right X-Man, of course. Oh, he would relish the pain of any of them, enjoy it like a delicacy and it was that craving that brought him to New Son at all. But there was one, the one responsible for his imprisonment that he really wanted. Psylocke. Even the name sent pangs of want through him.

But not yet, not until he was stronger, not until he had the power of a city of screams filled with anger and hate to back him up. For now, he would have to wait for his ultimate prize and satisfy himself with the tiny licks he allowed when he sometimes felt her on the astral plane.

New Son had turned out to be a good choice to possess, a young mind, easy to overthrow and swallow, a body with enough power to allow him to take a trip to a place where no one would notice him for a while as he recovered, and at the same time, not let on to any of New Son's associates that the mind of the man they knew was now dead.

The children had been partially satisfying, and only temporarily. Their innocence lacked the substance, the filling quality of the negative emotions he yearned for. Their insignificant lives had been a desperate resort, an attempt to build strength without revealing himself with his more signature approach, with the anger and the hate that usually lashed out at his inducement, like a seasoning to make the life-energy he fed on taste better. Plenty of crazy people in the world kidnapped children. The case in Michigan would be assumed to be no different.

But now… now he was splurging, bingeing, mass-consuming.

There was a city of opportunity here, and it was time for him to take advantage, to murder the hunger pains. With great care, he reached out and gave the thousands of minds close by a psychic touch. So much variety: students, professors, office workers, blue-collar, white-color… and so many of them young, full of life—volatile. Perfect.

He was strong enough finally, able to handle the large amounts of minds necessary to gain the power he needed. All it took was a psychic twist, like a faucet being turned off, and restraint was gone from them all, leaving them to act and dwell on the anger he fostered.

Deeply, he sipped the negative emotions, slow and sweet, savoring the taste and digesting the life-energy behind them. So good, so wonderful. It had been so long since he had feasted, and he swelled under the platters, grew exponentially. King of all these minds, all the shadows they held in their depths. Shadow King. Finally, full of life and thriving again.

_End Interlude_

_She had so much trouble remembering things now. It was as if the pieces of herself were slowly spreading apart to fill the space she lived in. Sometimes she almost forgot to pull herself together again, that there was no longer skin and bone and muscle to keep her within herself, but only her will. But sometimes facts got lost, little tidbits of information._

_And now she decided to search for them._

_There had been something, something nagging at her mind, telling her that there was something that she was supposed to be considering, something that she had forgotten. And it was a key item of information, important._

_So she considered all the important things she knew, all the shreds of fact that could help her stop a war._

_She knew that Remy was a key._

_She knew the conflict would be between humans and mutants._

_She knew New Son was a central cause._

_And there was something else…_

_New Son, his name on an old tattered newspaper… and a date. She reached for the missing piece of information, grabbed it as it tried to diffuse away, pulled it back to herself and examined it._

_And finally it was there, spread out before her in sudden, effort-requiring, clarity. The date she'd suspected in all began, the date of no return perhaps._

_November 25, 2001._

_She wondered what today's date was, and she realized she had no idea. She asked Remy. He didn't know either, and was surprised to realize it. He usually always knew the date, except with everything going on lately, he had lost track._

_So, she concentrated on accessing the outside world through his senses, searching for an answer to her necessary question._

_They were walking the streets of the city now, looking for an inconspicuous place to drop underground, and as Remy passed a corner garbage can, overflowing with debris, she caught a view of a discarded newspaper._

_The date was November 25, 2001._

The Morlock Tunnels were quite extensive. Some extended up to Westchester near the Mansion, but the heart of the network had always been across the water on Manhattan Island. Most of these had been forced to be abandoned when the police started catching on and smoke bombing the sewers that emptied into them. And that had led to the move north.

But that didn't mean some didn't stay behind.

No matter how hard the city tried, it would never rid itself of those that lived in the shadows. Because it was impossible. These beings didn't just dwell amongst them; they had become the shadows, pools of darkness sliding around the light.

And everybody knew that the only way to really get rid of a shadow was to turn off the light.

So as long as the city existed, the Shadow Walkers would still be there.

He'd been a Shadow Walker once, in the back alleys of N'awlins as a child. He tried to remember now how to become one, to blend in perfectly with his surroundings.

But there was too much adrenaline seeping from his pores. They'd been forced to leave the cars sooner than intended, loosing them at the toll booth that blocked the bridge into the Big Apple. Apparently, things in Greenwich were getting desperate, because the city had gone into total lockdown—no one came in, no one went out. They'd hit the traffic jam long before the road block.

So they did the logical thing. Left the cars and switched to flying and using the motorcycles that had the convenient ability of weaving through cars.

There were enough flyers to take care of those in the cars, but Remy and Wolverine were left to fend for themselves. Remy had forgotten how much fun it could be to use a police car for a ramp. He must have gotten a good 5 seconds of air time coming off the black shiny roof.

And dodging bullets really could be quite invigorating if you didn't consider the consequences of getting hit. Fortunately, he only got brazed across the arm once, and that was when he busted through the roadblock on the other side and only because he had to cut his insane speed down slightly to weave through more traffic-jammed cars. An ability to sense moving objects all around you really could be quite advantageous. Of course, Wolverine didn't even have to dodge, he just took them and kept going, his mutant healing factor taking care of any wounds he incurred.

Of course, it helped that the area had already been in a state of mass chaos when they'd arrived, and that most of the police couldn't make up their mind whether to shoot the mutants flying over head or the ones riding down bellow.

But those New Yorkers, they were vocal when stuck in stop and go (well, more like stop and stop) traffic. He was still trying to figure out who had been more of a threat, them or the cops.

He was in a different world now. He tried to recall the maps of tunnels he had been forced to study back when he had worked for Sinister to lead the Morlock Massacre. Even though it hadn't occurred near here, he had studied all the underground passages, just to be sure. He'd learned the value of thoroughness long before he'd met Sinister.

Marrow had naturally taken the lead, completely in her element, moving smoothly and gracefully, her steps silent in the puddles of water. Storm and Cyclops flanked her shoulders. Under any other circumstances it would have been an unbelievable sight, to have her associate herself with the team so thoroughly, to be leading them. Inconceivable as relations currently stood. But here? This was the Underworld; the rules here were different.

And that was why Remy chose to take up the rear, because he understood those rules, and he knew that one of them was to always watch your back. Which was why he knew that they were being followed. Oh, there was no noise, no dead give away, and he didn't have hyper smell and hearing to help him figure it out like Wolverine did. But he did have enhanced night vision, and when he turned back to glance over his shoulder he could tell that the shadows weren't placed just right. The strips of light falling in around the occasional ceiling grate didn't fall just as they should, as if something were in the way, obstructing their path. So before the Shadow Walker was even in the range of the kinetic field he had extended around him, before he had even used that field to detect the careful movement, he knew.

And so did Wolverine. He glanced at the Canadian who nodded. They dropped back slightly from the group, kept walking. "He won' bother us unless provoked, y' know," Remy whispered under his breath, so that only Wolverine would hear.

"I know."

The Shadow Walker kept with them all the way to 7th street, when they decided it was time to formulate their plan of attack. Jean was already finding it necessary to create her bubble of protection around them.

They were standing in a sort of oval, having a quiet conference. Remy had dropped a card in the middle of the group to provide some light, which won him a nod of thanks from Scott.

"Jean, how are you doing?"

She looked okay, not terribly stressed or anything. "As long as we stay close together like this things are great, but I don't imagine it's going to stay this way for long." She stuck her hands in her jean pockets, weighing down the waistband so that in rode down below her shirt line. He could see the yellow and blue spandex costume peeking out from underneath.

"No, sorry, not likely." Scott shook his head. "Once we attack, we'll probably be scattered, but more than that, I'd like to have the ability to attack from multiple sides if that's possible. If we threaten the Shadow King from a series of different points at once, maybe it will spread him out enough to weaken him."

"How much distance do you need between attack groups?" Jean asked.

"How much can you give me?"

"As long as each group is within 5 long city blocks of me, I think we'll be okay, but that's going to take all I have. There will be nothing left for me to fight with."

"Then it makes sense that you be positioned beneath the attack point, to give all the groups maximum range of motion." The voice came from Storm, who was standing stiffly, tensely, next to Remy. He wasn't sure if it was the claustrophobia or the nature of their situation that was bothering her. Probably a mixture of both.

"But that will leave her also in the center of danger, meaning that somebody will have to stay and protect her, at least until the rest of us have entered the area. That leaves two groups of two and one of three to attack with. Wolverine, I want to you stay with Jean. When the time comes to attack I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding your way upstairs to join in the foray. I'd like to try to confuse Shadow King as much as possible, so instead of coming out of the tunnels right near his location I'd like to come up a few blocks away in each direction and avoid taking the straightest route to our attack point, just to see how much trouble we can cause before we get there. That leaves us to form attack groups. I want to have the flyers spread out so we can attack from both the ground and sky angles. Storm, you're with Gambit. Rogue, I'll keep you with me and Beast, Iceman and Marrow are together. Bobby, you have your ice bridges and Beast, you should be able to find enough lamp posts to swing off of if you find the need to get a higher perspective."

Beast nodded. "Undoubtedly." It was hard to tell in the shadows of the lit playing card, but Remy thought he was grinning.

"Jean, I'm going to need you to coordinate our attack. You'll have to contact each of the groups so that we can time this thing right. I want us all to hit Shadow King at the same time."

Jean nodded. "Fine, but that's going to cut your radius from me down by about a block."

"Alright, we can deal with that."

"Which leaves one question," Bobby interjected suddenly, "where exactly is our attack point gonna be? Or, more to the point, where's Shadow King?"

"Right where he's most powerful, where stress is up and people are distracted enough to be easy targets for a megalomaniac telepath," Jean answered.

Bobby gave her a look in the semi-darkness. "And that would be…?"

"Washington Square, mixed right into the hub of the NYU (New York University) campus, with a never ending supply of stressed students and young radical minds."

**Interlude**

The Light Dwellers had split up and he'd had to decide. Who to follow? He'd almost settled on the furry, blue one, the one who most looked like a Dark Dweller might look, or the one with the bones who clearly knew her way around, but then he'd seen the glowing red eyes with the darkness like holes in the center.

That had clinched it. He was fascinated by the bright color, by the faint light they gave off. Imagine, a Light Dweller who brought his light _with_ him. And the Light Bringer could make light too, turn a piece of paper into a glowing lantern, like the one he held in his hand now.

They weren't far ahead of him, not too close either, so he could keep himself hidden, but not so far that he couldn't hear them speak every so often, quiet, capturing the wind and forcing it into words. His hearing was so good now, as were all his senses except his sight since he'd come down here, as if there were a certain part of his brain allotted to experiencing the world and once he'd come into the darkness and had not much use for eyes anymore, some extra space had gone up for rent. Oh, he could see colors and shapes and such, plenty enough for his needs, but details were lost to him.

The Light-Bringing one said something, too quietly for him to hear and then the woman with the white hair glanced briefly over her shoulder.

Did they know he was here? Had he made a mistake, somehow done something to alert them of his presence? But they were still walking, still keeping the same steady pace, and the Light-Bringer never once looked back, never once lent him a glance of the glowing eyes.

His mind tickled.

It was a very strange feeling, something he'd never felt before, but his mind tickled and then there was something else there, working its way in and the tickle became a poke which soon became a stab.

He would have screamed, only before the message could be sent from his brain to his vocal cords, his mind was no longer his. Shadow King had just acquired some new real estate.

His mutant power was rather complex, but what it came down to was this: he had the ability to disrupt the forces that bound molecules together. The relatively weak intermolecular forces were a piece of cake to destroy, without which a solid substance just sort of vaporized. He'd never completely understood it, having been banished to the darkness before he had a chance to really do any studying on the topic. An unfortunate side effect of his ability was that the molecules of his body were constantly phase shifting, intermolecular forces weakening and strengthening intermittently. It made him quite odd to look at, as if he were shimmering, or glittering unnaturally.

For Shadow King, it was all perfectly convenient.

Because next to and above the Light-Bringer and the White-Haired Woman there was a tallish building, whose foundation extended deep into the ground, not far from where he was standing.

The foundation never had a chance.

_End Interlude_

Remy had thought himself ready for any possible attack should the Shadow Walker prove to be hostile, which he doubted.

That was before he felt a strange sensation with his empathy in the direction of their follower.

Which was before the building fell on them.

Somehow, Storm managed to keep most of the debris from hitting them with a mixture of wind and lightning, and somehow, Remy managed to use his mutant senses to help them dodge the rest.

But the most amazing part by far, perhaps even more amazing than the actual collapse of the building, was the fact that when it was all over, they were still alive.

He looked at Storm, her face dimly illuminated in the light of the kinetically charged card he held. The red cast reminded him of the emergency lights that had lit up once when he tripped the alarm in a museum he was robbing. He had been 16, cocky and sure, never expecting that something would go wrong. Everything had been cast in an eerie pall, and he hadn't been able to escape the tinge of fear it brought to his confident teenage mind.

There was fear now, but for a different reason. Her expression was one of terror, barely controlled, the white eyes wide as she created a slight, cool, breeze in the enclosure to help keep her calm.

Her voice came to him on the wind, searching for him in, what must be to her eyes, relative dark. "Remy?" Her voice sounded hoarse, maybe from the settling dust, maybe from her own anxiety. He could feel the shifting walls around them, the boundaries of their entombment, how little space those walls afforded them. Small spaces never had worked well with her.

"Yeah Stormy, I'm here. How you doin'?"

She took a deep breath. "I will be fine." The words were forced, losing all believability.

But for her sake, he nodded and pretended to believe. He'd known her for a long time now, and he knew that she was suffering inside, that she desired with every nature-tuned cell of her body to be free. Even without his empathy, he would feel it.

His hand reached out to the wall of fallen concrete behind him. There had to be a way out, and he was going to find it as soon as possible. He walked along the perimeter of the enclosure, running his hands over the walls, and holding the glowing card in his mouth for light. A jagged piece of rock sliced through one of his gloved fingers. Blood ran out, staining the gray stone crimson. He ignored it, continuing his assessment of their situation. He could feel the movement of debris still settling above them. There was a chance that even their little pocket of air could collapse if they didn't get out soon.

And then he felt the support pillar high above their enclosure, moving ever-so-slowly, cracking under the stress of debris, the one that would break under any provocation.

He cursed.

"What?" He could feel her anxiety projecting out like a noxious gas filling the room. He blocked it, closing the doors of his mind against her.

Turning, he tried to keep his expression as neutral as impossible. He took the card out of his mouth, knowing how frightening his eyes must look in its light. "We may be here for a while, Stormy."

He waited for the panic on her face, but she was stronger than that, refused to be defeated even by her claustrophobia. She nodded succinctly.

She trusted his judgment. They'd worked together long enough for that, and he realized that she was perhaps the only one of the X-Men that did. She believed him, even when she must have wanted so much to tell him he must be mistaken.

One large portion of wall was still standing in what was left of the tunnel they had been in, the other three sides around them mostly crumbled and jagged rock and concrete. He found his way to it, walking behind her and slid down, legs extended across the floor. Gently, he nudged her heel. "Come on, might as well get comfortable." She turned, looked at him and he gestured to the floor beside where he sat.

She came next to him, hugging her knees to her chest, leaving some space between them. "You cannot blast us a hole out of here?" she asked. She almost seemed afraid to hear the answer, but she wasn't a woman to run away from the truth.

So unlike him.

"Non. Dere be a strut ready t' collapse. If I use my power it'll break, sendin' de whole building down on us." There was no way to put something like that gently.

"I see." She took a deep breath, hugging herself tighter. He felt the breeze in the room pick up a bit.

The lit card was still in his hand. He began to flip it easily over his fingers, playing light patterns on the wall. "Well, look at it dis way. If it collapses, at least it'll be quick."

She looked at him, exotic features tense. "Was that supposed to put me at ease?"

He shrugged. "Um… yes?"

An eyebrow rose. "I thought you were supposed to be a smooth talker."

His head turned to meet the diamond stare. "Y' wan' me to smooth talk you Stormy?"

The wind whistled gently through a crack in their prison walls. The card moved faster across his fingers.

She looked away. "No. I just want you to talk."

He looked forward again, and it occurred to him that there was one more venue left for him to try. Maybe if he could reach Jean with his empathy, let her know that they were in trouble, she could follow the tether of emotion back to them and get help. Closing his eyes halfway to help him concentrate, he tried to reach out past the walls of debris.

Inside him, the silence was unnatural. It had been for some time he realized, even before the collapse. _Emily, where are you?_ he wondered on his way out of his mind.

"_Busy working on a way out of here."_

And then she was gone again, receding back into wherever it was she had been before. He focused his thoughts together, into a field of energy, wrapping himself in its blue glow. Into the crossroads of his mind, and then back out into the psionic plane beyond his own psyche.

_Indiscriminate thoughts, feelings, yearnings… hate, anger. It was all around him. Every mind he met consumed in it so that the webs of emotion wrapped around him, sticking to him and weighing him down. Down, down, into the mouth of the spider. The central energy source so hungry, so blood-thirsty, so… wanting. And then its shadow fell over him, it's black, glassy eyes turning to him, arms reaching out and him trapped in the web of hate, unable to escape…_

_Remy, what are you doing? Get out of here! Help is on the way._

He gasped, slammed back into his body, Jean's voice still echoing in his ears. The card playing over his fingers slipped and skidded across the floor a few meters away, fizzling to darkness.

"—What is wrong?" It took him a moment to realize Storm was urgently speaking to him.

"Remy? What is happening?"

Her hand was on his shoulder, shaking him gently. He blinked, reorienting himself, shielding his mind from the echoes of webbing. So much hate…

"Sorry, Stormy. I'm okay." He grinned to assure her. "Don' worry, de swamp rat still be here to keep y' company."

Her eyes were wide, barely controlled panic there. He could sense the fear of abandonment in her, that she had almost been left alone here in this dark, tight, space. There must be horrible memories of being buried alive next to her dead parents as a child playing all through her mind. He wasn't the only one with baggage to carry.

"What happened?" she asked him. "You were unresponsive, blank."

"I was reaching out to Jean. She says the X-Men are on their way."

"That is good news." But she seemed unsure. Like she was holding back on her hope a bit, just in case. "Do not ever do that again without warning me first."

He smiled, nodded dutifully. There was silence for a time. Her hand had fallen from his shoulder into her lap, and somehow, in trying to get his attention earlier, she had closed some of the space between them. He lit a new card up, shuffling it over his fingers, drawing her eyes to it with the movement.

"When did you first become interested in cards?" she asked suddenly.

He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Found a deck in a garbage can once when I was a pup foraging for food. Didn't know how to play and dey seemed pretty pointless to me, boring, but I kept dem jus' because I didn't own very much and dey were something I could say were mine. Den one day dis woman offered to give me a place to sleep for de night. Dere were some people who did dat, made dem feel like a Good Samaritan, I guess. So she takes me home an' when we get dere she locks me in a room an' I overhear her tellin' a man on de phone dat she'll sell me to him and he can pick me up in de morning. Course, I didn't plan to still be dere in de morning. I picked the doorknob lock easy enough, but dere was a hook on de outside of de door going through a loop on de wall, an' de only t'ing I could find to fit between the door and the doorframe to unhook it was one of de playing cards I had. After dat, I decided dey weren't such a bad t'ing after all. 'Course, I didn't realize until much later, when I was facin' dis baddie named de 'Pig' how good of a weapon dey could be."

"And now it is your trademark."

"Oui. And a star is born."

"How about the trenchcoat? Does that also have a story?"

He shook his head and grinned lopsidedly. "Nope cherie, I don't need a story to wear somet'ing dat has dis much class. An' as long as de girls agree, I'll keep wearing it."

"And as long as Rogue agrees." She smiled knowingly and he mentally patted himself on the back for having distracted her from her claustrophobia so much.

"Rogue and I rarely agree. Dat's what makes it so interesting."

She didn't reply, and the smile slowly died on her lips. She seemed to be somewhere in her own thoughts.

"What're ya thinkin', Stormy?"

She shook her head, coming back from her mind's meanderings. "Nothing."

"Suuuuuuuure. An' I'm not wanted in most of de free world for stealin' something." He challenged her to deny it with his gaze.

She looked at him sternly, and then the look turned into a gentle smile. "You do not know when to leave things alone, do you?"

"I didn't get to know de taste o' my own foot so well by keepin' my mouth shut."

"I suppose not." She paused for a moment, considering. She looked so small here, back to the wall, arms wrapped around her legs, hair short and framing her delicate face. He didn't usually see her like this, stripped of her regal confidence.

She continued. "I was thinking of how I miss having a companion."

He paused for a moment. "Y' mean like a boyfriend?"

She said nothing.

"Look 'Roro, you're a beautiful woman an' one day de perfect guy is gonna walk through de mansion doors an' find you. You jus' haven't met him yet." He found her eyes and for a second something passed in them, a something that he couldn't quite identify, and it took all of his will-power to resist chasing it down with his empathy.

She looked down at her hands, holding each other in the comfort of their own warmth. "Perhaps. I find it so hard to trust people too deeply now. The world is a shifty place and it has affected me. I think that is what always destroys my relationships in the end. I am an independent woman, and could survive alone for the rest of my life, and I know that. That is what scares me."

He looked at her, watching her eyes, white and shadowed like the face of the moon. She was trembling, her skin raised in tiny bumps. "You're shivering, Stormy."

"I am cold."

"Turn down de wind a bit den," he suggested, gesturing in the air.

"The cool air soothes me. It helps to keep my fears in control."

"Fine den, have it your way. But I ain't gonna sit her an' watch a femme convulse wit' de chills." He moved over, covering the last of the distance between them and gently put his arm around her, pulling her against him, using his kinetic body as a heater for her. She didn't resist, moving to him, her head against his chest.

"Thank you. Occasionally, you really can be suave."

When he didn't reply, she added, "Remy LeBeau at a loss for a clever comeback? I have seen it all now"

"I'm still tryin' t' decide whether to be offended."

"Ah, I see."

There was a stretch of silence, one that lacked awkwardness. He felt her stop shivering against him.

"It ever bother you that Scott came back an' was automatically leader of de X-Men again?" he asked suddenly. He wasn't sure why he asked it, but it was something he had been wondering about for a while, something he'd been meaning to check with her.

"Do you mean jealousy?"

He didn't answer, knowing she understood him.

"I… have mixed feelings." She sounded as if she were choosing her words carefully. "I did not enjoy suddenly having the responsibility of leader taken away from me so easily, but I was also injured at the time. If you recall, I had just fallen out of the sky."

He knew she was trying to be light about it, but his memories of seeing her lying unconscious and wounded in the medlab kept him from appreciating any possible humor. "Yeah, I remember," he muttered.

She paused, as if interpreting his mood and then: "Scott had every right to take over the X-Men. He came when we needed him."

"And now? Now dat you're better?"

"I am still not completely healed. After a trauma such as the one I suffered, it sometimes takes years to feel normal again, as I believe you would understand. But… I do sometimes wish that I could be in control, and then I remember how much more experience Scott has in leading. I do not enjoy such responsibility, even if part of me craves it."

He looked down at the card in his hand. "I don't t'ink anybody enjoys responsibility like dat." And yet his was so much worse, if he was to believe it, the entire future rested on him. For all he knew he could have already messed things up beyond repair.

She was quiet for a moment. "But still…" Then she stopped.

"But still…?" He prompted when she seemed unwilling to continue.

"Nothing."

"I'm telling you Stormy, I really am wanted in most of the free world."

She sighed. "Sometimes it is hard to watch decisions be made that you do not agree with, and to not have the ability you once had to change them."

"Y' mean like coming down into the tunnels to get into Greenwich."

She didn't reply.

"I'm sorry about dis, 'Ro." He wasn't sure why he felt like he needed to apologize, maybe because he had supported the idea to come here, maybe because of something completely different and long past.

His arm was around her shoulder, and as she tilted her head to look at him, he could feel her soft hair gently tickling his hand. "For what? Believing in a plan? This is not your fault."

A little voice in his head wanted to say, 'It's always my fault,' but he intercepted it before it could reach his tongue. _Angst bad,_ he told himself. _Despite how often I do it, angst is bad._

And then, as if she could sense his train of thought, she snuggled in a little closer to him. Not much, possibly he'd even imagined the movement completely, but he could feel her presence next to him, trembling within from fear, warm and alive and without even intentionally doing it, he realized he was feeding comfort and calm into her using his empathy.

Her breaths were even against him. "You have questioned me. I believe it is my turn now." She looked at him and smiled. "Do not think I missed that look in your eyes, Remy LeBeau. I can see the doors closing inside you."

He didn't meet her inquiring eyes. "Sorry, 'Ro. Reflexes." If only it were just that, too bad even now he had secrets to hide. Probably he always would. Maybe it was just in his nature.

She was quiet for such a long enough time that he began to believe that maybe she was kidding about questioning him, and then she shifted in his embrace to look at his right hand on her shoulder. She traced the scar with a finger. "Does it hurt?"

He shook his head, uncomfortable. "Non."

Her weight shifted back to where it was before, his hand free from further scrutiny. "I mean inside."

He squinted at her. "You're speakin' in riddles, Stormy." But he knew exactly what she meant.

"You have been through much, my friend, and you have talked very little about it. You nearly died, as did I. I know how traumatic it is." Her breath was on his neck as she looked up at him. It was warm, soft, and persistent.

His shoulders managed a modified shrug. "Wouldn't be the first time. I t'ink I fully expected dat I wouldn't survive when I decided to try and blow up de lab. 'Course, I wasn't thinking fully coherently at the time."

"Then for you, the threat of dying was not a shock, it was waking up alive. Sometimes that can be just as traumatic. That, I also know."

He said nothing. Finally he decided on: "Well, I ain't gonna complain if somebody upstairs decides to give me a few extra years to run around terrorizing the world and all that good stuff."

"You are avoiding the main point."

"I know, pretty good, eh?" He gave her a lopsided grin and winked.

She nodded. "Intolerably so."

He chucked quietly, hoping the mood had lightened for good.

"I know Remy, that there are things you are not telling me, and I suspect you may even know why it is you have recovered so quickly from your injuries. I do not wish to force information out of you, I just want you to know that when you are ready to talk, I am ready to listen. But please, remember what hiding secrets got us last time."

He could hear the genuine concern in her voice, not the berating or lecturing tone that would have evoked hostility in him. "Don't worry Stormy, I won't forget de lessons I've learned, an' I promise dat in de end, you'll know all dere is to know, and dat it's for de best dat you don't now." He was surprised to hear himself say it, to admit that he was hiding things rather than flat out deny it. But he also knew he was tired of lying, tired of lying to people he loved and trusted and who wanted so much to trust him back. He'd meant what he said. As soon as he could he would tell her everything, everything she wanted to know.

She simply said, "Okay." That was it.

"Dat's it?" It escaped him before he could stop from saying the words.

"If you are ever to trust us again, we must learn to trust you. It must start somewhere. I choose to begin it."

All he could say was, "Thank you, Stormy." And he almost told her, almost said everything right there, about the future, about Emily.

Except that Emily wouldn't have any of it. "_You tell her and the X-Men will have one less member to worry about. We can't have any distractions, any potential trouble with worried friends. You tell her and she tells the X-Men and they do whatever they can to get me out of your head. Sorry, I didn't come all this way to lose because we went soft. Suck it up, there's work to do."_

So he did, because he could feel the urgency rocketing through her being, the knowledge that something was going to happen soon, very soon. It was an infectious feeling, and it caused him to shut his mouth before it even opened to blurt out the truth.

The cold breeze had lessened slightly, no longer enough to cause goose bumps. And she seemed to be much calmer now. No reason really for him to need to hold her anymore, no reason for her to really need to stay in his embrace.

Neither of them moved.

In fact, they stayed entwined for another five minutes or so, up until Jean contacted Remy and told him the X-Men couldn't get in without collapsing the chamber.

_End Part 12_


	13. Part 13

Author's Note: Just remember that I often use italics to symbolize thoughts instead of quotations, or also to represent things going on inside of the mind. Hopefully this won't be too confusing.  
  
Part 13  
  
Emily knew what had to be done. As much as she hated it, she knew it was the only way. The X-Men would be no help, Jean had just confirmed that, telling Remy psychically that the building was too close to collapsing and the X-Men were too busy trying to tame the violence to be of assistance.  
  
It all came down to here and now. Today. This day would be the turning point of history, either for good or for bad. Today would either be the birth of her future, or of a better, brighter one. She felt that completely, her very spirit was invigorated by an urgent anxiety. It wasn't just the newspaper clipping she had seen worlds away, because even that hadn't held enough information to really be sure of anything. It was something deeper. intuition maybe.  
  
So today she would risk all, even giving him his power back, the Omega strength powers that she had been restraining since he'd overpowered the safeguard of nanos in Sinister's lab. It had been easy to build the wall of energy around his mutant abilities, with tiny holes like Swiss cheese allowing only a small fraction of his power to leak through, especially when he had been unconscious at the time and near death. There had been no resistance from his mind, no reflexive fight against her. But so much had happened since then.  
  
She was so much weaker, so much more tired, so much more. hazy.  
  
She was dying. Her body had been left behind long ago, and now her life energy was slowly being used up, diffusing away into.  
  
Nothing.  
  
He didn't know because he didn't choose to know. Remy had given her her privacy from the very beginning, a side effect of his affinity for blocking unpleasant memories. He tended not to wade around in the depths of his mind anyway, too much pain was there to find. As interlocked as they were, she was still very alone.  
  
There was so little of her left now, after all she had done-giving him life once again after Sinister, healing him of his injuries, restraining and controlling his power for so long, simply holding herself together. She didn't know if she would be able to restrain and control his powers again if she let them lash out once more to free them from their prison in the tunnels. No, she did know. She wouldn't be able to.  
  
There would be only enough of her left to free them and destroy the Shadow King, all in one continuous motion. She knew, as soon as she stopped, as soon as she pulled back, it would all be over, and she would fall apart.  
  
She had known from the moment that she came back to the past to stop the future, had known then that her end had been sealed.  
  
But there never had been a choice.  
  
The future needed her.  
  
*******  
  
It was beginning to get very hard to breathe. It took Remy a lot of effort to keep from gasping the stale air Storm vigorously whirled around their small cave, as if she felt that making it move faster would somehow give it more life energy to impart onto them.  
  
They were running out of time. He was acutely aware of Storm's body against his, where she was still wrapped in his arms, and he wondered if he wasn't starting to feel some effects of claustrophobia himself. She was starting to get nervous again, growing more panicked as the oxygen become increasingly rare. He could feel her shaking, chills raising bumps on her skin though he knew it wasn't the cold that made her shiver. They had to do something, and they had to do it now.  
  
The X-Men couldn't help. They had tried and failed. That meant it was up to them, to him. He might not be able to blow up the entire rock tomb they were buried inside, but maybe he could hack away at it little by little. And if it all came tumbling down? He consoled himself with the thought that at least it would be quick. He looked at the frozen terror of Storm's countenance. Anything was better than this.  
  
Gently, he let Storm go and slid away from her. He could see the child- like expression that suddenly whipped around to face him, eyes so large and terrified and innocent. "It's okay, Stormy. It's time we got out of here."  
  
She said nothing, only watched as he stood and walked to the opposite side of the enclosure, resting his hands on the rock wall and still holding the card that he'd been using to provide light for them. The devilish glow cast strange shadows across the dips and crags of the rock, and his mind unconsciously started to pick out faces in it, creating monsters to torment him. He fought the thoughts away, wondering if it was fear or oxygen- deprivation that brought them.  
  
"Don't fear. I've got your back."  
  
Huh? It was such a weird comment, especially from the usually hostile Emily. He tripped over the thought, still not used to thinking of her by that name.  
  
"We can't stop the Shadow King from down here. I'm going to help you get out."  
  
How?  
  
"Your full powers. You may not be able to control them but I can."  
  
He felt the reflexive tightening of his stomach. Y' trust me as an Omega? He wasn't really sure what he meant by that question. Suspicion? Shock? Uncertainty?  
  
He could feel her sardonic laugh. "No. I trust me as an Omega."  
  
He gave her the equivalent of a mental furrowing of the eyebrows. What does dat mean?  
  
"It means we are going to be sharing your higher conscience for a while."  
  
Non. He thought it like a fist coming down on a table in finality.  
  
"You have no choice." A pause, then: "Look at her." There was a strange feeling like she was pointing over his shoulder. He glanced back at Storm who was still watching him with that same open, vulnerable stare. "Do you want her to die?" And he knew Emily was right. He had no choice.  
  
He sighed deeply. Okay, you've made your point. What do I have to do?  
  
"Trust me" she said.  
  
And then, suddenly, she was moving forward, advancing through his mind. .It felt strangely like he was high or drunk for a moment, as he felt himself losing full control of his body. he didn't feel grounded in reality. everything so far away. And she was there, so close. Joining with him, melding their consciousnesses into one in a way that he had never experienced before. He felt himself drowning in the sea of her essence and there was the sudden reflexive fear of being lost in it. Desperately he began to claw himself back to the top, refusing to let go of what was left of himself. He couldn't let go.  
  
The cave disappeared and he found himself huddled in a ball in the corner of his mind. She was there, ethereal in the unearthly glow her feminine form produced. Tendrils of her green light wrapped around him, warm and soothing, but he refused to let them inside, to touch the core of himself that he protected.  
  
"Please," she said, and her voice was soothing, actually pleading. Her hard exterior had been stripped away by the beginnings of their joining and what was left was a desperate being, much like himself, begging him to help her.  
  
He looked at the hand that was outstretched to him, the fingers delicate and reaching. "You want me to touch you?" he asked.  
  
She nodded. He remembered the last time he had touched her, how much it had upset her, remembered how a simple touch destroyed all her defenses. She was giving herself to him, and asking him to do the same, giving up every last shred of privacy, every last shred of self. For what?  
  
"For the future," she answered. He realized that she knew his thoughts, that she could know everything about him if he would just let her. and he would know everything about her. She really was willing to make any sacrifice for her mission, and in that moment he admired and respected her more than any time before. Slowly he unwrapped his arms from around his knees where they had been holding him in a protective ball. He felt her fear just as she felt his. Fear that sounded like static in the crackling energy of his mind.  
  
"Our mind," she said.  
  
He stood, looked into the emerald abyss of her eyes. "Will we be able to separate again?" he asked.  
  
There was an uncertainty in her expression, more fear. "I don't know."  
  
He could hear the echoing of their less conscious thoughts around them, background noise like whispering ghosts. "There never had been a choice," one of them said, and he wondered whose mind that had originated from, hers or his.  
  
It didn't matter though, it was right.  
  
Slowly he reached out his hand to touch her, keeping his eyes locked in her gaze. And in the moment before they touched, he heard her say, "I knew there was something noble about you, Remy LeBeau." And then his fingers slipped around her hand and it all disappeared.  
  
For a moment more he couldn't help fighting it, couldn't help greedily clutching the control of his mind and body tightly to himself, but then there was her voice coaxing him to let go and it wasn't just her voice anymore, it was his.  
  
"It's okay."  
  
It felt like he was dying and being reborn again. It was so different this time, so different from last time when they had been fighting for control of his mind at the Congressman's house. This. this was something amazing, somehow beautiful, surreal.  
  
Two minds made one. Completely, with only the slightest distinction between the two. It was invigorating, the kind of feeling you spend your whole life searching for in a companion.  
  
And here it was.  
  
Gradually, the world snapped into focus again. He-they could see the rock wall before them, their hand resting on it, a glowing two of hearts wedged between the long graceful fingers. Their long graceful fingers. The air felt like tissue paper-thin, transparent. There were sobs lifting on the wind behind them, quiet and restrained. Stormy.  
  
We are ready.  
  
Yes.  
  
Let's go. The thoughts came together in a barrage, with almost no way to tell whose personality they originated from. But despite the loss of distinction between them, there was no fear. Only calm. Focus. Power.  
  
It was time to free themselves from their prison. They felt the walls melting away, so easily destroyed under the force of their combined focused will, and the scalding fire-storm of power that began to pour out and into the rock wall they were now gripping with both hands, nails digging in as energy poured out. It started as a low rumble and a gentle vibration that grew into a deafening roar. Their eyes had slipped half shut with concentration, but they could see through the edges of the lids that the room was glowing a blazing red. The heat from some stray energy that they hadn't quite managed to hold in potential form. the pain of breaking open underused passageways for energy to pour out of their body. it was like they were burning alive in an inferno.  
  
Almost done.  
  
Can we hold it long enough? If we release too soon there won't be enough power to vaporize it all...  
  
We have to.  
  
The power was still pouring out, and it seemed as if there was an endless supply. so much to control. Too much for one, but together.  
  
We've got it.  
  
Almost.  
  
Now?  
  
Now.  
  
They could feel Strom standing behind them, turning slowly and staring at the glowing walls, could feel her amazed terror. They held on to that, directing the energy away from her, creating a bubble over her and themselves and directing the power up, all potential, all restrained, controlled with so much effort.  
  
And then. they simply let go.  
  
To them it was like the sky was falling, the heavens were being created, the world was ending and a volcano was erupting all at once. That was the only way to describe the searing temperature that burned their skin despite their effort to shield themselves, the way the rock just disappeared above them, and the noise and light that left them stunned in black silence. So much to take in and yet all at once.  
  
It was done.  
  
And they stood, choking on the dust in the air, blinking at the moonlit crater that had formed around them, trying to see through the spots that almost completely blocked their vision.  
  
. We did it.  
  
You think?  
  
And for a instant it seemed time had been put on pause just to give the universe a chance to catch up with the sudden series of events that had happened in such a condensed period. The next moment came years later as they whirled around, all at once moving toward Strom who was still standing there, eyes just now fading from white to brown as she stopped using her powers and concentrated on breathing.  
  
Is she okay?  
  
She looks frozen.  
  
"Storm?" they whispered gently, not even sure if they really said it that quietly or if it just sounded that way to their deafened ears.  
  
The eyes slowly focused on them. The skin around them looked sunburned and her hair was whipped about in a net of knots. Her lips were spread apart and slowly they began to move, trying to form words.  
  
"Remy. your eyes. they are green."  
  
They blinked. "Green?"  
  
"On black." And then she was silent, as if it didn't even occur to her to ask why.  
  
She's traumatized.  
  
She needs help.  
  
We can't stay. We have to find Shadow King.  
  
We'll call Jean.  
  
They searched for Jean on the astral plane, finding her so much quicker than Remy could have alone. They called to her over the interference of a mass of anger-filled minds tainted by Shadow King's poison. *We're free. Storm needs help.* They waited a moment to feel Jean's acknowledgement, and then retreated before she could ask all the questions that they knew would come. She would know they were. different now. But there was no time to explain.  
  
We have to go.  
  
Calm down.  
  
There's no time.  
  
They put a hand on Storm's shoulder to comfort her. She looked at the fingers that tried to comfort her, glove ripped off. "Jean is coming, you'll be safe with her."  
  
She looked back at them. "Where are you going?"  
  
"To find the Shadow King."  
  
She seemed about to protest, but they backed away before she could. Bowing slightly: "Au revoir, Stormy. We'll be back soon enough."  
  
And then they spun around, running off to climb the crater walls created by the explosion and ignoring the question they could hear her ask behind them:  
  
"We?"  
  
But there was no time to explain. They had a world to save. together.  
  
******* Interlude  
  
Jacob Gavin Jr. had almost made it. He'd even rented the car to drive off into the sunset, or at least into the New York traffic. He was ready to get far, far away from New Son and the craziness of the big city, lay low for a while. Maybe sip a few martinis on a little-known beach in the Caribbean.  
  
So close.  
  
And then his conscience started talking. And talking. And talking. Going on and on about how New Son seemed different than the other crime bosses he'd worked for, how something wasn't right about the deal with the Congressman, how suddenly he had a duty to make sure it was nothing too horrible. He scoffed. Duty. He must have bumped his head very hard somewhere along the way. Even blasting the most annoying pop he could find on the radio hadn't shut it up. Finally he relented, turned the car around, and ended up here.  
  
Here, on the walkway to Congressman Schecher's opulent home, wearing a perfect likeness of the house's cook. It was just before dawn, maybe a half hour earlier than when the cook usually arrived. That meant he had a half hour to break into the Congressman's office, find the information he needed, and get out. Maybe more if the situation in the city kept the cook from being on time. A half hour and hopefully that little nagging voice in his head would finally leave him alone.  
  
Jake wondered when he had picked up something as annoying as a conscience. He knew what it meant, it meant his career was over, whether he got caught or not. He was useless as a middleman if he cared about the morality of the packages he carried. Not even thirty yet and he would have to retire, which at the moment, didn't really sound all that bad. It would be nice, relaxing. No more of this high-strung desperado stuff. He really wasn't cut out for it.  
  
He stuck his hands in the pockets of the long gray wool jacket he wore. The cook was a tallish Italian man, slightly stocky and with an open, friendly face. It hadn't been too hard to duplicate him. Jake always made sure to have a record of the appearance of all clients and related figures before he took a job-just in case. He often posed as a photographer for a fictitious photography magazine cleverly (he thought) called, "The Morpher." Most ordinary people were flattered enough that they never noticed they were having their portrait taken for a magazine that didn't even exist. Jake remembered that the cook had given him a charming grin, a signature trait of his, for one of the series of pictures he had snapped. Jake tried the grin. It felt natural on his new face.  
  
He was thankful now for the paranoia that drove him to take such photographs, all a precaution. It made him feel safe, and Jake liked being safe. Only presently, he was very far from it. He started up the brick walkway to the large wooden front door. His hands were sweaty in his pockets. There was an uncomfortable knot in his throat. So this is what it felt like to play "hero". How did Remy stand it?  
  
The door opened only minutes after he knocked. A butler appeared and nodded at him, recognizing the face and letting him in with a "Good morning, Tony." He gave the butler his practiced, signature grin and said nothing. The butler didn't seem too concerned with the cook's early arrival, and after closing the door again, he turned and walked off without any further delay. Jake was left alone in a large living area-high ceilings, polished wood floor, brick, unused fireplace, some very cushy looking furniture. The butler had disappeared down a hall straight ahead of him, but there was also a staircase to the left and another hall that opened off of the right side of the room.  
  
Jake felt like a wanderer standing at the crossroads where all the signs for the streets had been turned around and lost. He had absolutely no idea where to turn next. He wasn't a thief like Remy, used to finding his way around strange places, and he hadn't been able to get a hold of a floor map for this place. That wasn't the kind of thing they published to the public.  
  
If I were a Congressman, where would I keep all the important papers I didn't want anybody to see? he thought.  
  
And the answer was. he hadn't a clue. He wasn't a Congressman and he didn't keep important papers. If they were important then they didn't belong on hardcopy where somebody could easily steal them.  
  
Jake took a deep breath to sigh, but then restrained the release of air, remembering that if he was going to be covert about this, he should probably be quiet. The stairs would be more likely to lead to private rooms, kept away from where any guests would be if entertaining in the living room. He decided to try that.  
  
He went up the first step. *Creak* He froze. Creak? He hadn't considered the possibility of a stair saying, "Creak." Carefully, he took another step, again the wooden stairs squealed under his weight, though slightly quieter this time. He considered for a moment turning back, in case the butler heard him going up the stairs that he was sure a cook had no business going up. But then he had a better idea.  
  
He morphed into a dog. A dog with four legs whose weight would be more widely distributed and therefore make less noise. It was difficult to do while being careful not to rip his clothes so that when he shape-shifted back into human form he wouldn't be naked as the day he was born. He managed to make it work and to climb the staircase with no further creaking, though the wool coat dragged a little with a scratching sound. Still, it was an improvement.  
  
He changed back into the cook and began checking rooms, first looking under the doors to make sure the lights were off. The first one ended up being an empty bedroom, one which sent his heart racing until he realized it was unoccupied. The next one was the same, though this one he was sure was the Congressman's. It was very large, reserved, polished. It had the feel of a master bedroom that had a lot of attention paid to it. The Congressman was gone, and Jake wondered if maybe he wasn't even in the house, if he'd been called away to help deal with the sudden crime explosion in the city. An explosion that Jake had a strange feeling New Son was involved with, though he couldn't begin to imagine how.  
  
There was an office attached to the side of the bedroom, the door to it left open. Jake walked around the large waterbed in the center of the room, fighting back memories of the first time he'd jumped on one of those things, only to have it break and spray water everywhere, while he squirmed around trying to get off and sure he was going to drown.  
  
The office was also of notable size. Out of a large window with dark drawn curtains, Jake could see the preamble of another sunrise, traces of light streaming in to touch the desk against the far wall. A computer sat there, turned off. Next to it were some papers left out, a pen dropped across them and uncapped, the whole pile disheveled looking, as if somebody had left in a hurry.  
  
Jake sat down in a comfortable, leather-lined swivel chair in front of the computer. He turned it on, waiting for it to power up as he looked at the papers on the desk. New Son had sent his information to the Congressman by disk, so that meant that what he was looking for would be on the computer. He'd put quite a bit of effort into making sure he became an accomplished hacker, and being that he worked for some of the most secretive in the crime business, he'd had quite a few opportunities to pick up some tricks of the trade that most didn't get to find out about. Of course, it was one of his less advertised talents. His employers felt safer thinking he was the naïve, defenseless little messenger.  
  
He, of course, felt safer knowing that wasn't true.  
  
It took some effort, and there was some information he wasn't able to get to in the handful of minutes he had, but by the time he heard steps coming up the stairs he'd found enough. And as he climbed out the window, cursing himself for his sudden bravado and knowing he was going to fall and break something wearing this heavy wool coat that wanted nothing more than to trip him, he tried to make sense of everything he had just learned.  
  
Something big was happening, something that directly effected him and those like him. But it didn't make sense. He'd had some idea of what the deal with the Congressman was about before, though only a very vague sense. He'd just assumed that New Son's interest in the Mutant Registration Bill would end up helping mutants, especially since from his last experience in New Son's office he'd figured out that the man was a mutant himself.  
  
So then why was New Son trying to start a human mutant war?  
  
End Interlude  
  
*******  
  
The building was an ordinary one, maybe ten stories high, pollution- stained, lost in ambiguity between Greenwich Village and the commercial business of 34th street-far from the stereotype of the lair they knew it to be. Remy/Emily stood across the sidewalk from it, a lone figure in a place that should have been bustling with New York City vigor. The strangeness of the situation left a tightness in their throat.  
  
It's so. the thought trailed off, the description wrought in feelings rather than words. Are we sure?  
  
Yes. Question and answer came almost at the same time, the shadow personalities of Remy and Emily interacting, diverging and converging again like strands of DNA interlocking and twisting out the expression of life.  
  
They closed their eyes for a moment, reaching out to feel the sink in the astral plane, like a black hole that swallowed hate and anger rather than light. It was here, so strong it threatened to pull them in, and it was very hard to resist it. There was so much to be angry about. fury for the pain and death that had come out of the human-mutant war, residual resentment at being abandoned in Antarctica by the people they'd trusted as friends, agony at watching their parents die, so traumatized that they lived in denial until the man that had been responsible-themselves in another reality-confirmed it to be true. so much to fill them with dark, black, negative emotions.  
  
But the memories didn't fit-two perspectives fused together with a telltale seam of confusion that allowed them an awareness of Shadow King's attempts to control them.  
  
We need to strengthen out mental shields.  
  
Jean isn't here to help us anymore. she probably doesn't even recognize us on the astral plane.  
  
We have the strength of two minds now, we can fight him.  
  
There was truth in the thought. and also some doubt. If they failed they knew what it would mean.  
  
They walked across the street that was unnaturally empty, into the lobby of the building where no guard stood. Everything was eerily quiet.  
  
The eye of the storm.  
  
The action was happening farther downtown, where all the tumult was, all the disaster, not a soul left to consider this lonely office building that harbored a monster. Shadow King had fooled everyone, even Jean into focusing on the wrong place. But they knew, somehow what used to be Emily had always known, exactly what to look for.not for the darkness, not this time, but for the light. Shadow King was sucking up negative feelings so rapidly and completely that where he was there was an absence of darkness. The black hole analogy wasn't quite right because in reality, its exact opposite was true. Shadow King had learned some new tricks since the X-Men had last met him, had become more powerful somehow.  
  
But they were more powerful too.  
  
They walked soundlessly, as if a loud noise would shatter the peace here. The floor was patterned with black and white tile, glossy in the fluorescent lights of the room. The sun filtered in through the windows, low and vengefully bright. It would be full day soon.  
  
Carefully, they slipped off the trench coat that had been reduced to tatters and tears and was now hindering their movement. It fell with only the slightest "clack" on the floor, leaving them to move freely in only black and fuchsia spandex. Ahead the elevator was prominently displayed but they avoided it, finding a stairwell instead, knowing it would be safer. They felt supremely aware of their surroundings, more than they had ever been before. It was. invigorating.  
  
They were even able to feel it through their kinetic field sense when something moved on the eighth floor, six floors above them. Their steps quickened, taking the stairs two at a time and never making a sound, neither physically nor on the astral plane.  
  
The eighth floor seemed to come in only a handful of heartbeats. They stopped, hand on the doorknob, staring at the bold black number "eight" painted on the door and concentrating on steadying their breathing.  
  
We need a plan.  
  
There was another movement. All senses able to focused on it instantaneously. They were a predator perfectly attuned to their prey.  
  
Surprise is our ally-  
  
Attack him-  
  
Astral or physical?  
  
Physical. kill him.  
  
Astral-trap him.  
  
We've got it.  
  
They waited a moment more, running through the scenario they had just created in their mind, preparing themselves and assessing the dangers.  
  
This could kill us.  
  
Wouldn't be the first time we've faced those odds.  
  
They took a deep steady breath, tightening their mental shields, not so much as stepping a foot on the astral plane in case they might be seen.  
  
And then they opened the door.  
  
The hallway on the other side was long and still, lined with offices on either side, doors for many flung open wide. They paused, scanning for a movement, for any indication of where the Shadow King was. There was nothing.  
  
We could find him on the astral plane.  
  
No, too dangerous. We're too close. He'd see us and we might not be able to fight him if he focused in on us.  
  
Deftly, they pulled a card out of the holsters at their waist, clamping it between their fingers. The bow staff telescoped out easily with a "swish" of air. It had been strapped against their left thigh with elastic bands and they could feel the pressure of them against their leg.  
  
They began walking down the hall, using the hallway wall for cover as they glanced into each room. The first one was empty. So was the second, and the one after. All empty. Papers scattered the floor of many, a few lonely pens dropped there. It had been a rush when everyone left. The people had been afraid, afraid of something-  
  
A movement. They felt it at the end of the hall. Emerging from the office they were currently checking, they looked to the closed door that stood there, opaque glass glowing just enough to tell of a light on inside.  
  
The light at the end of the tunnel.  
  
It wasn't very far. They passed a handful more offices and came to a place where the hallway opened into a collection of cubicles. They glanced at the desk of one as they passed. A screensaver of a shiny red ball bounced around on the computer there, endlessly slamming into the imaginary walls of the screen. No, not endlessly, everything has an end. They tapped the mouse gently as they passed and the screensaver flickered off.  
  
The door stood now only a few steps away from them. They stopped, listened. No sound, no movement. The card charged up in their hand, warm with kinetic energy to give it a little extra speed when it was thrown, the rest stored as potential energy to explode on impact. There was noise on the other side of the door, a squeaking and the sound of somebody's laboring exhale to go along with some slight movement. They concentrated on it and it felt like somebody squirming back and forth slightly, struggling with something maybe. There was only one way to be sure, and that was to open the door.  
  
With a few more cards in their hand and charged, they turned the doorknob and pushed through, the movement controlled and tight. They just barely managed to abort the barrage of cards they were automatically throwing as they entered and realized they weren't facing what they expected. What they expected was the Shadow King, a man of power.  
  
What they found was a timid, young man tied to a chair, eyes wide and terrified.  
  
End Part 13 


	14. Part 14

**Part 14**

Remy/Emily squinted in the screaming light that advertised the growing new day, the large picture window at the opposite end of the office framing a disadvantage for their ultra-sensitive eyes. They tried to process the terrified looking man sitting behind the large desk with the resources of both of their experiences and their combined knowledge.

But all they came up with was a reaffirmation that this was not what they had expected to find.

They still stood poised for action, weight even on their wide stance, staff in one hand, a splay of cards charged in the other. There was a camera in the corner of the room, but nothing that they could see worth stealing. No papers spread out over the laminated desktop, no file cabinets, no extra chairs for meetings, and a computer that was sitting on a small table in the corner of the room looking untouched.

If nothing else, it was obvious that this wasn't a room used in the normal office capacity.

"Finally! Thank you!" the worn, fearful expression of the man perked up as he registered Remy/Emily. "Please… help me?" The voice went from excited to desperate.

They weren't sure what to make of it. Where was the Shadow King? Was this just a trick?

Maybe their plan to surprise their enemy had failed.

The man stared at them, dark, Italian-looking eyes begging them for help. They noticed his hands were tied to the large, black, plush chair he was sitting in. Cautiously, they moved forward a few steps.

And that's when they noticed the bomb strapped with duct tape across his lap. Another step. The timer came into view, a little digital readout amidst a mass of wires. A little digital readout that boldly flashed its unhappy news.

Five minutes until they all blew up.

_This day just keeps getting better and better,_ they thought. With a renewed urgency they considered their options. The bomb would no-doubt be set to detonate if the man were untied and moved…

"PLEASE! Aren't you going to do anything?" It looked as if the man, probably only in his late 20s, was about to cry. He was dressed in a precisely cut suit, definitely an expensive knit. He'd probably never faced his mortality as severely as in this moment.

"Who are you? Who did this?" they asked. It was strange that he didn't seem afraid of them, even considering his situation. They _did _have red—green on black eyes and were holding a hand of glowing cards that they had been about to throw at him a minute ago. How did he know they wouldn't kill him before that bomb did?

"Remy, please. I'm gonna die here! He's a madman!"

Every muscle tensed. "How do you know our—my name?" They remembered the use of the singular this time, as unnatural as it felt.

"Because I'm your boss. New Son." The bomb beeped a warning as another minute disappeared. New Son looked down at it with eyes that somehow widened even more, and then back up with increased panic. "Please, the Shadow King did this. He was just here. Help me! I don't wanna die!"

New Son. This was New Son? The man behind the name. He had been much more intimidating when he'd been faceless. New Son had been a powerful crime boss. This was a deer trapped in headlights…

Something wasn't right. They couldn't figure it out. Shadow King should have been here… unless he changed locations after they had shut their mind to the astral plane. They wouldn't have felt him move then. Or maybe…

Maybe this was the Shadow King and they were the ones about to be taken by surprise rather than the other way around.

"Where is the Shadow King now?" they asked, still not making a move to help the man.

"I don't know. Please! Aren't you going to help me?"

_Beep_. Three minutes until they all blew up.

_What to do? _They swallowed with stiff muscles. _If we trust him and we're wrong?_

_And if we don't? We go boom too…_

Too many variables… too many unknowns. There was only one way to know if this was New Son, and that involved its own risk. If they checked him on the psionic plane and it was really the Shadow King… At this proximity they might not be able to fight off his influence…

The man—whoever he was—was screaming in hysterics now. Amidst the list of expletives, they were able to pick out the gist of his cry: "Are you insane? There's a bomb strapped to my lap! Help me!" If it hadn't been so horribly, undeniably true, it might have been funny.

Nobody was laughing. Deep breath, and they took a step forward, knowing there was nothing else they could do. They couldn't let this man die, couldn't free him just in case he was... They had to be sure before they did anything.

_We are stronger together. We can do this._

And in that moment they believed it. All differences behind, they were truly one. One being with one goal—to find Shadow King and destroy him. It was time to do the finding part. Green-on-black eyes locked into the man's terrified brown ones and hooked onto them, holding the stare as they dropped the walls around their astral being and set themselves free on the psychic plane.

The anger and hate rolled in unhindered, all the feelings of sinking and blackness _I am alone in the world_ that plagued the deepest corners of the psyche on the darkest night _I have no hope, I have no future._ They fell to their knees immediately, only minimally aware of the action, perceived only as the slightest jarring of the brown eyes they were still staring at. Eyes that were no longer terrified, eyes that were suddenly shackles and chains about them as their intensity seemed to bore a hole right through where their heart should be. _I am worthless. I am unloved._ They felt it all, every negative feeling they had ever had in their lives brought back and magnified like never before and like could never be again… because it all added up to a weight so heavy _I am crushed. I am sinking._ that it was impossible to breath.

Suffocating. The man in the chair had gotten up, and had his hands around their neck, fingers of rusted metal gripping and twisting. The bomb beeped in the distance, abandoned on the chair.

His hands burned and froze, all at once. They could feel the solid touch of hate and fear and depression. _Why has the world done this to me? I want it all to end._ All they wanted was for it to be over, for it to be gone, for the blackness to stop growing in them and for the screaming that was piercing their ears to end. It was getting more straggled now, more raspy, and the hands were closing around their neck until eventually they couldn't hear the screaming anymore. It occurred to them that it was their own.

_Breathe. Must breathe. _

Heavy lids, blinked once, twice. Another beep. They were coming every 30 seconds now. Those eyes were all they could see, ripping them apart, burning them up and choking them with the smoke. Eyes closed, one last dim though…

_One and a half minutes until we all go boom._

There was a feeling of thankfulness. Soon it would all be over. After that the darkness came.

* * *

_Where are we?_ There is a palpable black night with the crackling of lighting running throughout and failing to distill the darkness. Yet they know their surroundings.

_We are in our mind. The place that Emily used to stay in._ It was the last place left for them to retreat to, the last place that remained walled off.

They look down at their blue- and green-laced form. It looks so dim, flickering like a dying light. _It's almost over._

The blackness is everywhere, closing in on them so that they huddle claustrophobic in the shrinking space. _It's killing us._

_We can't die._

_Why?_

_We have a mission._

_Can't, it's too hard. He's too strong._

_Must destroy the Shadow King._

The thoughts are collective, unattached to any clear personality within them, and as they see the light of their being distilled into the encroaching darkness, they let the last waves of their essence roll over them – the memories, the thoughts, the desires – the last and most important things to impress upon their mind at the last and most important moment.

_He reaches out to touch her, knowing that this moment might be their last. Rogue looks back with those green eyes of captured emerald, wetted just enough that they gleam with the reflected light of his own red-on-black eyes. The Crystal Wave is coming, and with it, the erasure of their existence. It is here and now that his desire is greatest, here and now that he knows that there is one thing that will make him complete before he dies. His arms tighten around her as her hands press into his back, and with one last look into those green eyes of captured emerald, their lips meet with a kiss that marks the culmination of their lives._

_She looks up into her father's face as he stares resolutely ahead. She feels his big hand tighten around her miniature one and likes the strength she feels there, drawing on it to keep her from crying as she looks around and sees the homeless on the street – the children, the mothers, the fathers. She knows in that moment how lucky she is to have a family, a home to live in, food to eat. She sees a little boy, not much older than herself, with red spiderweb lines all over his skin. She will see him again one day, but she doesn't know this now. He is alone, sitting on the ground and digging through a small pile of trash. She looks up at her father again, finds him looking at her. "How?" she asks, "How do they survive?" He looks forward again and doesn't answer for a while. Finally he says: "Hope. They live on hope."_

_Antarctica__. He hates __Antarctica__. The way time melts away the feeling of the snow so that you are left with nothing but the numbness of death. He doesn't know how long he's been wandering though white blindness, doesn't know why he keeps doing it anymore. The rejections of the ones he loves ring through his ears and yet still he staggers on, crawling when he can't walk. Why does he do it? Stubbornness? He refuses to die. He remembers where he came from, that his simple insistence for survival is the only reason he is here to wander through this eternal winter. It is a habit now, an instinct. Humanity stripped away by cold and crystallized tears so that this is all he has left: I will not die._

_He has always looked so big to her. They call him Spider and he is a rock of a man, solid, with a will that can bend steel. She's seen it happen. He looks down at her now and holds out his hand to shake hers. The skin is laced with thin red lines, a spider webbed pattern that covers his body from head to toe. She's seen that too. She grasps the hand and then he pulls her close, whispers in her ear: "Goodbye Em." And then they are a few feet apart again, professional and polished. "Are you ready?" he asks. "Yes," she says. "You cannot fail. The War must be stopped." She nods: "I know." She turns and steps into the portal that will lead her to the past…_

That has led her to here and now.

_We cannot fail. We cannot die. _

It is the final truth left to them, with everything else ripped away in the Shadow King's maelstrom. Their last icon of identity. It is their solid ground and they stand on it, letting it expand out from them and hold away the feelings of doubt.

They can feel him, feel the Shadow King just beyond the blackness, a darker spot in it all, so dark he is brilliant and they can feel his transformation to the astral plane is almost complete, can feel that in a moment's breath he will exist only there with no need for a physical host. They feel that that moment must not come.

Running across the foundation they have built, they look toward that brilliant darkness, leap toward it and latch on with Emily's power to lace into another's psionic being. The blackness is solid and it seems to roar, a monster, the culmination of a million nightmares and they are there digging themselves into it, deeper and deeper and winding through it until they are a part of it.

_We cannot fail._

They remember that they are on the astral plane, and that there is a physical plane outside of them. They remember that in this physical plane there is a bomb and that this bomb is going to blow up very soon. Winding into the core of the Shadow King they find the last ties to a feeble and dying mind, one that had once belonged to New Son. They reach into this mind, strengthening it and still holding onto the Shadow King, holding the two together so that he cannot escape the pull of death when the bomb explodes and New Son dies.

There is another monstrous roar. But they refuse to let go, holding him to that mind, to the physical plane, as they use Remy's empathic power to infuse feelings of love, hope and determination – the essence of what they are, the remaining core of their being when all else is stripped away – into the blackness.

But it is not enough. The Shadow King is pushing back, reaching for the dark patches of their pasts and smothering them with them, yelling to them that they are alone and the world has abandoned them.

It isn't true.

_No more lies. We have each other._

_We need more help._

_Then let's get it._

* * *

Jean Grey-Summers was tired of screaming. She was marginally aware of the fact that her voice was getting raspy and her throat was throbbing, but the part that bothered her the most was the noise. So much noise. Everywhere. Inside her head, outside of her head. And no way to stop it. It even echoed off the walls of the abandoned subway tunnel she stood in.

Wolverine was down, stabbed through the heart, and as the blade sunk into his chest she screamed again. She could feel all the pain of it as if it were her, the consequence of being connected directly to his mind.

She could feel all of them, every single X-Man there, as she held their minds in hers and shielded them from the Shadow King's influence. Wolverine was back up again, healing factor working over-time, but as he was pulling himself to his feet an angry mob was surrounding Cyclops and swinging at him with pieces of wood and brick from the damaged buildings around them.

_"Scott"_

_"Don't worry about me Jean, I'll be fine."_ One of the men, one wielding a board with a nail in it, managed to get a shot it, sinking the weapon into Cyclops' arm.

Jean screamed again.

She couldn't take much more of it, all the pain they were feeling. Storm had been taken out of the fight already, her injuries from their last incident with Sinister coming back on her and making her too easy of a target. Marrow was also down, with Bobby trying desperately to protect her from further damage as he suffered attack from more of Shadow King's minions.

And Rogue? She was gone. She'd foolishly touched a mutant girl that had attacked her, one under Shadow King's control and it was just too much for Jean to fight off. Shadow King had a direct path into Rogue's mind and Jean had no choice left but to let her go. And so she was gone. Stupid girl. At least it was one less person to scream for.

And then there was Gambit. She had no idea what had happened to him.

Jean was worn out. The Shadow King was leaking in. All the power of the Phoenix within her and slowly this madman was still winning. And she didn't know how to stop it. Nobody had been able to find his host body yet, and unless they did that there was no way to beat him. He was too strong to fight on the astral plane.

_"No he's not."_

She jumped at the sudden entrance of a new voice in her mind. _"Who is that?"_

_"Remy."_

She felt out the voice, formed the features of it in her mind, like a mental face. It was a face she didn't recognize. "_You're not Remy."_ She knew Remy's psychic imprint, she'd been in his mind before.

_"I've changed. There's no time to explain. We need your help."_

The voice echoed in her mind, twisting through like a duet. It was a strange sense, like seeing double of two slightly different images. _"Who are you?"_

_"No time. We are friends and you must trust us. We need you to beat the Shadow King."_

_"How?"_ The thought was jarred by another scream. Bobby had just been knocked unconscious.

_"Combine your strength with ours, and the strength of all the X-Men you're in contact with. Help us to hold the Shadow King in his host body and attached to the host psyche."_

_"Why? What will that do?"_

_"No time. Trust us. We have to do this now."_

Jean could feel the astral form of the hand offered her. She screamed one last time as Scott got hit again and took that hand. There were no more options left to her. This was her last hope.

* * *

They are a powerhouse of energy. Three psionic forms wound together and dragging the remnant of the X-Men in tow, a shining light of energy. They follow the ropes the Shadow King has tried to tie to their minds, the chains intended to pull them down under his influence. They follow them until they come to the black hole at their end, the concentrated mass that is the monster himself. They slam into him with all the force they can and force him back into the fragile mind of New Son, strengthening the connections between him and that host mind.

They hold him their, pinned under their force of will. And they wait.

There is fear in the Shadow King, fear in the remnants of New Son's mind, because they remember that bomb in the room. They know that it is about to go off. They know that they cannot escape.

With the last of their strength they reach out into the physical plane, directing Remy's control of kinetic energy outward, pushing the energy away from them, manipulating it so that there is a bubble around their physical form that the explosion cannot reach.

And as they retreat from the Shadow King's being back into their own a split-second before, they somehow hear an echo chasing them through New Son's ears. The final "Beep!" of the bomb's countdown, and then everything goes boom.

* * *

end Part 14 


	15. Part 15

**Part 15**

Darkness. And pain all over.

"Am I dead?"

"Not quite so lucky." The voice is Emily's… but it sounds wrong… distant.

Distinct. Far away.

He forces his mind to focus and clear so that slowly the darkness dissolves into what he knows to be the astral plane. The pale green form of a woman stands before him, so lost in a hazy mist that he has to check a few times to make sure it isn't his own mind creating the blurry effect.

"Emily?" It's so strange to say the name and not be referring to a direct part of himself.

"Yes, Remy." She says his own name in a way that he has never heard before, and the effect is soothing. And yet… her voice is an echo, its origin hard to trace. It leaves him feeling confused and a little lost. If he'd been in a physical form, he thought that the hair on the back of his neck might have raised.

"We separated?"

"Yes."

He takes a moment to try to get his bearings, still dazed. He looks down at his own form and sees patches of light and dark, the dark areas flickering occasionally. It makes him think of an animation he saw on the Discovery Channel once designed to illustrate the firing of nerve endings. He realizes that the dark areas are where the pain is coming from.

"What's wrong with me?" He asks, looking back at her, and squinting at her multiplicity. It makes him dizzy, or the astral plane equivalent of dizzy.

"You suffered mental damage." It sounds so matter-of-fact the way she says it, as if she expects him to know already.

Suddenly, he feels much more alert. "What?"

She seems to smile a little in amusement at his fearful reaction. "Only in the parts that control your mutant abilities. We basically burned ourselves out trying to save ourselves with your powers. I mean… you burned yourself out."

"So… it worked? Shadow King and New Son are dead?"

She nods. There is a hint of uncertain relief that radiates from her with the affirmation.

"How did you know? It was your idea how to defeat the Shadow King, wasn't it?" He can't quite be sure, it is hard to assign ownership to someone he'd considered to be at one with himself at the time.

"Yes. It just… seemed the natural thing to do. That tactic was similar to a training exercise I was taught when the Witness held me captive." The idea seems to puzzle her, as if there were something about it she'd already been trying to understand before he'd asked.

"And the kinetic field around us worked too? It protected us from the explosion, like when we blew up the cave Storm and I were stuck in?"

"Yes… and no. Everything except for the protected part. The kinetic field shielded us from any debris, but we still felt the force of the explosion." It seems like there is something else she wants to say and he realizes he can reach into her mind to find out what it is and she will probably let him.

Instead, he asks. "What is it?"

"You suffered a lot of physical damage along with the damage to your mutant powers. You'll barely be able to charge a card now, but your collar bone and a few ribs are broken so you won't be throwing any for a while anyway. There's other damage too… but I'm not completely sure what it is. Remy… I…" She stops.

He waits for her to finish. She doesn't seem afraid, just unsure.

"I don't think I can help guide your body to heal you faster this time."

He looks at her for a moment. She seems to be getting hazier as he watches. "Emily… what's wrong with you?"

A pause, then: "I'm dying, Remy."

---

Dr. Hank McCoy bent carefully over the prone form, immediately checking the vitals. It was amazing, but they'd found him lying there, on top of the pile of rubble that used to be a building almost 20 blocks away from where they had been battling in Washington Square Park. They'd felt the explosion from there.

"I don't understand it. He should have been crushed," Hank whispered, shaking his head. He moved quickly, checking the man for injuries. "Remy LeBeau… even cats run out of lives eventually, but you?" He shook his head some more and continued his examination. Soot and blood stained blue-furred paws ran over Remy's unresponsive form, deftly picking out the broken bones and swollen places.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Rogue asked with a worried tone.

Hank turned for a moment to look up at her. She would be dead if she hadn't absorbed some of Wolverine's healing factor following her release from Shadow King's hold, after he was apparently defeated. Her hair was a mess and her costume marred with gashes and holes, but she was alive. That was what counted in the end. The whole team had come out of this alive, somehow, though most of them had to be carried home by either himself, Logan, or Rogue. Even Jean had been left unconscious by the final climax of the battle. But despite that… given time, he thought that they might all be okay, and that seemed to include Remy too.

"I think so," he finally answered. "Multiple rib fractures, broken collar bone, dislocated shoulder, multiple abrasions—"

"Sugah," Rogue interrupted. "Just the short version please." She smiled weakly as she touched her temple to massage away what Hank guessed was probably an excruciating headache.

"His vitals are strong."

She nodded, looking relieved, and holding her hair back from her face with one hand, she knelt next to Hank over Remy's body. He watched her stare at him with wet eyes and trace his jaw line with the one finger of her hand that still remained gloved. There was such a tenderness in the gesture and Hank found it beautiful. He'd always been amazed by the power of humans to connect with one another in a way that he was sure science would never be able to explain.

She looked at him, her emerald eyes a little bloodshot from all the dust and soot in the air. "Can we more him?"

"Can? Yes. But not without a stretcher. He has too many broken bones and if one of those ribs moves the wrong way it could puncture a vital organ or slice open a major blood vessel." He looked around the heap of rubble a little helplessly. There was nothing he could see that they could use. Why was it that he could never have the right equipment available to do his job when he needed it? And where were the police and paramedics? He'd have expected to hear some sirens by now. It had been a full 15 minutes since the explosion.

As if on queue, the sound of emergency alarms suddenly blared through the air and a few blocks away he could see ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks careening down the deserted streets all at once. Well, then. There they were.

Rogue looked toward the noise. "No time, Doc. We gotta move now. Can't risk them firing on us or somethin' an' hurting Remy more."

Hank looked around a little more frantically, there had to be something they could use. He looked up at Rogue, who was now standing up straight next to him, watching the various vehicles coming toward them. She was… standing up straight. Hank McCoy felt the spark of a slightly insane idea flicker alive in his brain and rose to his feet suddenly.

"Lay face down on the rubble parallel to Remy," he commanded, pointing to where he wanted her to go.

"What?" She looked at him confused, brow crinkled.

He returned the expression with a hard look. The sirens were coming to a stop a block away, where the debris pile began. "You are going to be the stretcher. Now do exactly what I tell you to Rogue. We don't have much time."

She seemed to understand and did as he said, lying on the ground.

"Okay, now I want you to keep you body perfectly stiff, rigid and straight, like a board. I'm going to carefully slide Remy on top of you and you CANNOT move."

She obeyed again, doing the best she could to imitate a flat board. He kneeled beside Remy, taking a moment to decide how best to move the young man. Glancing at Rogue he silently cursed her curvaceous-ness. She was a far approximation from a flat stretcher.

He could hear the cops yelling that they could see people on top of the rubble. He was out of time. Carefully, he wedged his large fingers under Remy's shoulders and thighs, sliding him very gently onto Rogue's back, trying to line up their two spines as best he could to keep Remy's body as in-line as possible. But the first touch was enough to cause Remy to stir, and as Hank finished getting him into position, the injured man cried out suddenly, before falling unconscious again with the delirium of his own pain. If it was even possible, Hank thought he saw Rogue stiffen even more.

"Alright Rogue," Hank said finally. "Now fly back to the mansion, and remember, stay as straight and rigid as you can. Be careful not to jar him at all. There are a lot of sharp broken bones that can puncture a lot of very vital places. When you get there, wait until I get back before you try to move him."

"Like hell, Sugah. Ah ain't leaving ya here." She rose into the air next to him until she was just above his head. Then, reaching down with both arms, she waited for him to grab on.

"We go as a team."

He looked up at her, and knew immediately there was no point arguing. Sighing, he gripped her forearms. "You're right Rogue, how silly of me to forget."

Together, they rose into the sky, leaving the bewildered cops behind.

---

Remy felt a flash of sudden pain light up his world, heard himself scream and then felt the soothing feathers of unconsciousness reach up, whisking him away, he numb and unresisting. He had the sensation he was floating up into the air and wondered if maybe this is what it felt like to be dying. Finally, he was caught up in dreams, somehow more real than the reality that he had just left behind.

_He is standing on the shoreline, the sun hanging low over blue-green waters. He recognizes the place at once. It's a private beach off the __Florida__ cost, on the outskirts of __Clearwater__. He'd spent some time here once, robbing some of the expensive homes by night and sipping Martinis on the shore by day. It had been a carefree time, a break from some of the more complicated projects he'd tended to get involved with._

_He looks down at himself, dressed in flipflops, what had been his favorite swim trunks at the time, and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt. The sand is white like sugar and feels wonderful between his toes. He remembers how he used to insist on laying on it without a towel while soaking up the __midday__ sun to work on his tan. The beautiful bikini clad women that tended to frequent his usual expanse of the beach liked to giggle when he'd get up covered in sand and then stare as he washed himself off in the lukewarm Gulf waters. Of course, he did it because he liked the feel of the sand… not the stares of the ladies. Well, okay, the stares helped…_

_But that was a long time ago, years. What is he doing here now?_

_Looking up, he realizes that the beach is deserted except for a lone female figure standing near the water's edge. He knows without seeing the face that it is Emily, appearing in her physical form, long black raven's hair flowing in the salty sea breeze._

_He walks up behind her, looking so small and alone standing there. Her black tank top and cargo army-style pants seem out of place here, and it is fitting with who she is—a girl out of time, out of place._

_Stopping next to her, he glances at her face, the emerald eyes unmoving and transfixed with the site of the setting sun. He follows her gaze. The colors are rich with red and yellow hues._

_"Beautiful, isn't it?" he says._

_She nods. "Yes. I took this memory from your mind. It's one of my favorites." She pauses a moment and seems to be lost in a thought. "We don't have beaches like this in my time. The water was turned murky and black by the war."_

_He shakes his head. "I'm sorry." He stops, wanting to say that hopefully the war will never happen now, but not willing to take that for granted. Experience has told him never to take anything for granted._

_He sees her smile a little out of the corner of his eye. "The war may never be completely avoidable. But at least maybe we've bought some time and removed the Shadow King's destruction from it." He marvels that even with their minds separated, she still seems to know what he is thinking._

_She turns to face him, and he turns to look at her. Her eyes are intense and vibrantly green, as if capturing all the color and depth of the ocean next to them. "Promise me something, Remy."_

_"Anything, cherie."_

_"No, not like that. This isn't just anything. I need to know… before I die… that it wasn't all a waste. Promise me, that you'll spend your life doing everything in your power to keep my future from happening."_

_He stares at her for a moment, seeing the age in the young face, the earnestness. "I promise, Emily."_

_She seems relieved, and turns to look back at the sun, now touching the horizon._

_He is about to ask about her dying, held back by an unwillingness to solidify it in words, unwilling to accept that she could be gone. He didn't realize he'd gotten so used to her being there, had come to… like it._

_She wraps her arms around herself, body language setting up an invisible wall around her. "You know, I don't hate you, Remy. In fact, I think this is the closest I've come to loving somebody in a long time, probably because I've never been this close to someone before. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, but I guess something about knowing your existence is about to end makes a person sentimental."_

_The words come suddenly, breaking through his thoughts. He is surprised by them, and looks at her, more questions filling him. They spill over into his voice as he asks, "How much do you know about me?"_

_She looks at him again, a small smile at the edges of her lips. He is caught up in the way she wears a countenance of amusement while the serious intensity never leaves her eyes. "Everything there is to know, Remy."_

_Again, her gaze turns to the sunset. "We were one for a while."_

_"But there are still so many things I don't know about you."_

_"You were distracted at the time… and I have more experience with these things. I've been trained, and I knew how to look. You'll learn to eventually, I'm sure of it."_

_He tilts his head slightly, confused. "But my powers are shot."_

_"You'll heal. It will just… take a while."_

_They are quiet for a moment. The sun is halfway down now and the breeze is starting to pick up. She wraps her hands tighter around herself, shivering a little._

_"Cold, cherie?"_

_She nods and he slips off his shirt to put around her. "Don't know if this will help much, but it's something."_

_She gives him a sideways glance. "You don't need to take off your shirt for me."_

_He smirks. "No? You want I should take off the shorts instead?"_

_"The shirt's fine."_

_He chuckles a little and places the fabric around her shoulders, but before he can pull his hands away she places hers on top of them. He is standing behind her and a little to the side. Turning her head, she glances at him sideways. "I don't want to be alone right now." He thinks he hears fear in her voice. It's contagious and he started to feel a strange sort of discomfort growing in his stomach. Her tone is the tone of one who knows they are at the end, the tone of one who has accepted that their life is almost over. It's a tone he's heard so many times in his life, from former lovers and friends as they died in his arms, from enemies that he'd defeated and were stubborn enough to manage a few last breaths, from too many people. He knows what it means and is no longer able to ignore the words that have been echoing at the edge of his mind since she's said them: 'Remy, I'm dying'._

_Unconsciously, he begins to wind his arms tighter around her, as if to keep her there. It's never worked with anyone in the past, but maybe if he holds her close enough she won't be able to leave him. It takes him a moment to fully register his movements, to realize that he is standing behind her, holding her in his arms and resting his chin on the top of her head. It takes him another moment to realize that she hasn't resisted._

_"Chere?" he questions uncertainly. "What is all this talk 'bout you dyin'?" His voice comes in soft intonations._

_"I'm running out of energy."_

_Like always, she is short and direct. He is left to prod for more: "Li'l elaboration would help." _

_"When I came back to this time, I left my body behind. I knew the price I was paying for my mission, and I knew it would have to end this way. I became a being of pure psionic energy that needed a host body for long term… long_er_ term survival. But everything I do, it takes energy. Attaching my conscience to yours, saving your life—numerous times—accelerating your healing, just… existing. It all uses up some of me and thermodynamics says it. Energy can't be created nor destroyed. So what I use, doesn't get replaced—"_

_"And you're running out. Whatever's left is dissipating," he finishes. She is like a card that he has charged and then holds in his hand, watching the glow of it fade as he lets the energy disperse into the surrounding environment. _

_She is dying._

_"Can' I do somet'ing, Emily? Give you some of my energy, keep you alive?" He knows what he is proposing, giving part of his life to her, sacrificing some of himself. Remy LeBeau, the selfish thief, willing to give it all to someone else._

_He can feel her wry smile somehow. "Sorry. It doesn't work that way. I have nothing for you to bind your energy to. Having a physical form… somehow it holds a person's energy together and recycles it or something… I don't really understand all the details. But it makes the difference."_

_"Den can't I find you a body? Somet'ing you can occupy?"_

_She laughs a little, though with no joy. "If it's alive it's already got an energy attached to it and if it's dead then… well, it's dead. No use to me then. Besides, if I'd left it up to you I know what kind of body you'd find me."_

_"What kind's dat?"_

_"Some supermodel bimbo."_

_"Would not!" he shoots back defensively. He tries to look innocent but she turns in his arms to face him. Her look is hard, her gaze steady._

_"Remy LeBeau. Remember, I have been inside your mind."_

_He gives up his defense and looks away. "Yeah, yeah." The mild humor fades from his expression as he watches the last edge of the sun melt into the horizon. His expression grows hard. "Dere's nothing I can do, is dere?"_

_Her answer drifts up to him with a finality attached, "No."_

_He tries to accept it, forces it to make sense in his mind, avoiding her eyes. Finally, he faces them. There is a softness in their hard edge and he meets them with an unguarded stare. It is the only time he ever remembers looking at somebody that way, with such a complete trust and surrender, but she knows everything there is to know about him and there is nothing left to hide. Every other person in his life has turned away from him at some point when they've learned things about his past. She has turned toward him._

_His arms are still around her, she still standing facing him, one of his hand on her waist and the other absently rubbing her back._

_"I'll miss you, my cherie," he says._

_She leans in and hugs him. "I'll miss you too."_

_For a moment, it doesn't seem like they'll ever move and then she pulls just far enough away to look him in the eyes. "There are some things you should know before I go. Some technical details, I guess."_

_He frowns a little. He doesn't care about technical details. But he says, "Okay."_

_"First, when you were trapped in Sinister's labs, he infected you with something using the nanos. In my time it's called the Second Great Plague. I've been trained and taught to destroy it, or rather, how to give a host body instructions on how to destroy it, because it interferes with my ability to interact with or control a host. You had it, but I got rid of it for you."_

_"T'anks." He isn't really paying full attention, his mind focused on the moment, on the few moments he knows are left, but he can sense the information is important and records it in his memory, a skill he's developed over the years. He'll worry about this Plague later._

_"And second," she goes on, "when I go, I'll be leaving something behind. It's the box of memories I stole from the Witness the one time I managed to enter his mind. I've never been able to access it, and I guess it's probably irrelevant now, but it's not mine. Maybe you'll have better luck seeing what's inside."_

_He nods, again, memorizing what she says rather than absorbing it—not that he is likely to forget anything about this encounter with her… "Dat it?"_

_"Yeah. That's it." She looks away from him, gazing at the sky over his shoulder, her forehead wrinkled as she seems to consider something._

_"T'anks, Emily," he says, drawing her eyes back to him. The words are more than a simple gesture. He is thanking her for everything, everything she's taught him, every way she's helped him, for things he knows he doesn't even realize he owes her thanks for yet._

_She stares at him a moment, seeming to understand his meaning. He thinks maybe she is about to say something, but the words are choked off by her breath suddenly catching in her throat. Her eyes go wide for a moment and he can see the pain in the lines of her jaw. It seems to subside slightly, but he can still feel it there somehow, a ghost hanging over her features, threatening to swallow her up._

_"It's time," she says. A pause. "Goodbye, Remy."_

_He shakes his head, as if it is her choice and he can convince her otherwise, not really sure what to say._

_"And…" She pauses. There is a glint of indecision in her eyes, and then she does the one thing he wouldn't have expected. She kisses him. She pulls herself up against him and presses her lips against his, her touch frightfully cold yet strangely… alive. But as he begins to lean into it, begins to pull her closer to him, the life is suddenly gone, leaving her body limp in his arms._

_He slumps to his knees, carefully cradling her as he does, his hand under her head and he holding back tears just in case she can still hear, can still see, can still feel. He wants to be strong for her, wants her to feel protected and safe just this once, when it matters the most._

_A look of complete and boundless peace slowly takes over her features. It surprises him with its beauty and suddenness. Staring at the expression, he burns it into his eyes, immortalizing it in his mind. This is how he wants to remember her, in the one true moment of tranquility she has ever experienced in her life._

_A gust of wind sweeps over them, her body suddenly dissolving into grains of sand that are taken up in a spontaneous whirlwind, momentarily blinding him._

_When the dust finally settles his arms are empty and he is left alone, kneeling on an empty beach._

_His cheeks are wet._

---

_End Part 15_


	16. Chapter 16, Interlude

**Part 16 – Interlude 2**

J. Jonah Jameson was just about to close up shop for the day at the Daily Bugle. It had been an exhausting day and the commute home would be a long one. Things were still a mess from the attacks in Greenwich Village earlier that week and probably would be for a long time. The subway system and streets had been ripped apart by the crazed mobs running around destroying anything they could find—not to mention the damage done by the dozens of masked vigilantes that had run to the scene to supposedly take care of the situation.

In J. Jameson's opinion, they had only made the situation worse. He didn't really have anything against mutants as a rule, but they did have a tendency to be around whenever some disaster in the city happened. His paper reported the facts, but sometimes there were gaps between those facts and so he did his best to fill those gaps. The public liked explanations for things, not plot holes.

And perhaps more than the public, J. Jameson hated plot holes. But this violence in Greenwich was nothing but one big plot hole. Thousands of people suddenly acquire a berserker rage and start attacking each other? The natural inclination was to blame mutants, but how? Those people weren't mutants, and if a mutant was controlling them all, who was that mutant, and why did he stop doing whatever it was he was doing?   
There were too many theories floating around and J. Jameson was tired of publishing theories in his newspaper. He wanted facts.

He had just finished packing up his briefcase and was picking it up when the phone rang. He considered leaving anyway without answering it but decided if his secretary had decided to transfer it to him at 6:55pm, five minutes before he usually left the office, it must be important. He put down his briefcase and picked up the phone.

"Jameson here."

"Good evening Mr. Jameson. I'd like to offer you an article for your paper." The voice was deep and even, every tone measured to precision.

"Would you now? How about that." His sarcasm was his trademark.

"Yes. It's about the recent uprisings in Greenwich. I know what caused it."

Jameson sat down suddenly. Hard. His 6th reporter sense told him this guy wasn't a phony. "I'm listening."

"I'd be glad to share this information with you on the condition that you print an article I have written. I'm a geneticist who has studied mutants for longer than you can imagine. I want to share some of what I've found with the public."

Jameson paused a moment. Something in that voice advised caution. "And what have you found?"

"That there are ways that the public—the human public—can identify who the mutants are among them once the Mutant Registration Bill passes."

"The vote has been postponed until next week. You really think it will pass?"

"I'm sure of it. How can you think otherwise after what happened in Greenwich?"

Jameson exhaled heavily. "So mutants are to blame."

"One in particular. He went by the name of Shadow King."

Jameson grabbed a pen from the pile on his desk and began taking notes on the closest thing he could find. It happened to be a napkin left over from his lunch earlier. "Go on."

"Shadow King was a being of pure energy that fed on the negative emotions of others. Among his powers were the ability to influence the thoughts of others to produce those negative emotions. He often would possess the body of someone, taking over their mind and sucking their life energy dry. At the time of the attacks he occupied the body of a Mafia affiliate who went by the name New Son."

"And you're sure of this?" Jameson pressed.

"Positive."

"Wow."

"I will send my article for you to print within the next day. It will come to you by email." The voice was still as even and measured as when the conversation had started. It was incredibly disconcerting to Jameson. Jameson liked when people showed emotions he could possibly control. Stoicism left him nothing to work with.

"Wait. How can I contact you?"

"You don't. If we need to talk, I'll contact you."

"Sorry, I don't work that way," Jameson replied quickly. "Who do I name as my informant?"

"You have no choice but to work that way. As for the information, credit it to Nathanial Essex. E-S-S-E-X. Enjoy your evening Mr. Jameson."

There was a click, and that maddeningly controlled voice was gone. Jameson hung up slowly, blinking. He'd just been handed a gift as a headline, but there was a sinking feeling in his stomach that made him wonder at what price. He put the pen he'd been writing with down and re-read his notes. There would be research to do, background checks to run on those names. No doubt the government already knew this. He was convinced that S.H.I.E.L.D. had the answers to every mystery he reported on. They wouldn't be happy about him printing their top secret information. There would be at least a few people pissed off about it. J. Jameson loved pissing people off.

He picked up his phone again and dialed the extension for his secretary.

"Call my wife. Tell her I'll be home late tonight."

Jameson had a story to write.

_**End Part 16**_


	17. Chapter 17

**Part 17**

White room, white lab coat, blue face. His eyes stared at that blue face, trying to make sense of it. It was fuzzy—was that his vision? There was noise, a dull, featureless droning, coming at him from far away and slamming into the wall of silence in his head, so that only a masked undertone of it came through.

Silence. Something was missing. He knew something was missing, but the snaggled, damaged passageways of his brain couldn't connect what. There was a word, on the tip of his tongue, burning there like a hot coal. What was it?

A fuzzy blue hand to go with the fuzzy blue face was holding down his shoulder now. Had he been trying to get up? He didn't know… didn't know anything but that there was something gone, something he needed to remember.

Something… or… someone?

His chest hurt, heart in a crazed frenzy. He tried to remember… there'd been an explosion, fire raining down… maybe that's where the hot coal on his tongue had come from. Before that… a man in a chair, tied up, pleading for help. They had come there looking for someone…

They? There should have been someone else here…

Someone beside the blue face that was still moving its oxygen-less lips in that continuous monotone droning.

But that someone wasn't here, and he… he was alone.

Alone in an empty mind that still had the scent of a name drifting through its bare blackness.

The hot coal erupted—the name was Emily.

------

He had to find her. She was lost and he had to find her.

He tried calling her name. Tried searching through his mind, turning over the scraps and fallen walls and rubble. Why was it so messy in here? He couldn't remember.

It didn't matter anyway. It didn't matter because she wasn't under any of it.

Gone?

He felt frantic. No, that wasn't right. She was just hiding.

Maybe Emily was playing hide-and-go-seek.

_Ready or not here I come._

_Emily?_

No answer.

_Emily? Come back girl. I need you!"_

Again, no answer.

She had to be somewhere. With renewed vigor he began tearing at the few remaining intact portions of his mind.

He'd find her.

------

A clock was ticking.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

It was screaming out the beats in a high-pitched blur without waiting for the proper time to pass.

A clock on steroids.

There were voices hiding behind it.

"He's in shock. I don't know what else to do but wait. I can't seem to get his pulse under 100. Whatever his mind is going through, it's feeding his body constant adrenaline."

"We have no idea what's causing this?"

"Not a clue."

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

That clock was driving him mad.

_Shut up stupid clock._

"Wait..."

"What happened?"

"I have no idea… His pulse just dropped down to 70."

------

"Remy."

It was one of the voices on the 'outside'. It was saying other things too, but right now that was the only part he seemed to be able to understand.

"Remy…"

He struggled to remember what it meant.

Oh yeah… that was his name.

------

There were moments of lucidity, when Remy thought he had a handle on who he was. There were moments when his eyes opened and he saw faces hovering over him—eyes and noses and mouths jumbled up like Picassos. He couldn't identify them, but he thought he should know who they were. Instead, all he knew was that he was alone.

He stood in his tattered mind, looking at the pieces of glass glittering there. It was dark, like usual, and his life force glowed oddly—a slight bluish-green tint to it. Her fragrance left behind.

She'd been right. His powers were a mess, and as he walked carefully around the broken shards of himself, he saw that the way back out onto the astral plane beyond the boundaries of his own psyche were barred by fallen debris. It would take a while to clean up.

He walked over to it, tried to dig a small hole to look out. It was hard to do, but when he did, he thought he could hear a voice. It was whispering: "Remy. Can you hear me?"

He frowned. The voice wasn't HERS. It was a stranger, and he told it so.

"Remy, it's Jean."

Jean? He didn't know what that meant. He looked around, at the piles of debris. It must be in here somewhere. Shuffling through, he looked and looked for any sign of that name. It took a while to find it, but when he did, he held up the shard of his mind victoriously.

Jean. X-Men. A few stray memories gusted by him.

_I remember._

"Good," the voice said.

_Now leave._

"What?" The voice seemed shocked.

_You don't belong here._ He dropped the mind-shard and walked back to the debris wall that led to the 'outside'. Picking up a scrap from the floor, he re-plugged the hole.

------

Someone was singing. He heard the sound distinctly, and it seemed to have been a long time since he'd heard any sound so.

Slowly, Remy opened his eyes. It hurt.

_Light._ He marveled at it for a moment, confused. He'd spent so much time in the dark recently.

For a moment his vision swirled, making impressionist paintings out of his surroundings. It began to clear and he saw a room. Lots of white and lots of equipments. Funny boxes with funny letters and words on their funny digital displays.

"Remy! You're awake."

He turned to the sound and winced. Pain. Why was he in pain? It subsided as he focused on a woman standing next to him. Comparing his position to hers he realized he was laying down on a bed. A bed that was hard and uncomfortable.

"You've been asleep for a week."

The woman was looking at him with large green eyes. A name. He knew she had a name. He stared at the white streaks that ran through the front of her auburn hair… like falls of snow that had forgotten to melt.

It came to him. "Rogue?"

"Ah'm here sugah."

Well that was a silly thing to say. Of course she was here. He wrinkled up his face in confusion. "I know."

"How do you feel?"

For some reason, that seemed like a strange question. He looked around the room again. Pieces of him mind seemed to be falling into place, slowly re-aligning themselves. It was like a big puzzle.

"I didn't mean t' steal de jewel. But it looked so lonely, I couldn't jus' leave it there," he said.

"Huh?" Rogue responded. Her eyebrows tried to meet at the bridge of her nose, but they were too thin and delicate.

Wait. That wasn't right. He must have put that puzzle piece in the wrong place. Blinking, he struggled to set things straight.

"Do you remember what happened?" Rogue was asking.

He thought about that. "I'm not sure." He looked up at her expectant and worried face. Little patches of darkness had spilled out of her eyes, like ink splotches under her bottom lids. She really should wash them off. She'd look a lot better without them.

His eyes focused on something behind her. Another bed. A mass of red hair was lying on it, cradling a face over a white blanket. After a moment, his mind found the appropriate name. Jean.

Rogue followed his gaze. "She suffered some mental trauma from Shadow King. Scott says she's talked to him through their rampart and told him she'll be fine. Just needs a little fixing time."

He looked at Jean coldly. "She should stay outta other people's minds.

"What?"

"Don't belong. Her hair's de wrong color. It looks like fire but it should be raven."

A pause. "Remy… you're not making any sense… Ah should get Hank. He told me to wake him if you came around."

Did she look scared? He couldn't figure it out.

"Ah'll be right back, Remy."

She walked out of his view then. He tried to turn to watch her go. _Ouch_. His head hurt. He didn't like the feeling. And his eyelids felt heavy. Well, if they wanted to close, there was no reason to fight them.

The bed was still hard and uncomfortable, but he managed to fall asleep anyway.

------

The next time Remy woke up things seemed to make much more sense. No one was around this time and he found himself left with only a TV for company. He looked over at Jean's bed. It was empty.

"I guess dat means she's all better," he said, to no one in particular. The sound of his voice sounded strange—like sandpaper. When was the last time he had spoken? Time had lost cohesiveness and he found himself stumped by the simple questions of the month, day, and year—let alone the hour.

A remote control was on the bed-stand next to him and he used it to turn on the small television that hung suspended from the ceiling in the corner of the room beyond the foot of his bed. The face of a reporter illuminated on the screen.

"The Mutant Registration Bill was passed today almost unanimously. I'm standing outside City Hall in New York City where a few protestors are gathered, demanding equal rights. There is a line of police separating them from a much larger crowd—those who have come to support the new set of laws we will soon see forcing all mutants to register with the government. A week and a half ago, this scene would have looked very different. Then, these two opposing sides would have carried roughly equal support. But in the wake of the terrible disaster in Greenwich Village, which authorities have blamed on mutant activity, the anti-mutant sentiment has become a majority feeling."

Remy pressed the remote control again and the reporter disappeared. He was starting to remember things—like what exactly had happened before he'd ended up here in this room, and it made him wish he were still asleep.

Mutant Registration. The words seemed to sear his ashen mind.

Would there be a war anyway? A war despite everything?

The thought made him sick. Sick so that he began retching dryly. And he couldn't stop, even when Hank came running into the room to see if he was okay.

------

They were gone. Finally. Remy sank back into the bed and sighed. Scott, Jean, and Hank had spent an hour talking to him, trying to get him to tell them what had happened. He described the Greenwich incident as best he could, while avoiding too much detail about Emily. He simply left it at, "This life force invaded my brain and helped me beat Shadow King."

They weren't really satisfied. Especially not Jean, mostly because she knew it was more complicated than that. She had been in his mind with Emily there at the very end of the battle.

But he wasn't ready to talk about it beyond that. And that was something they were eventually forced to accept.

Now finally they were all gone.

"Your brain is still recovering from the damage. For a while, even charging a card will be difficult."

Well, almost all gone. Remy looked up at the blue fur of Hank's face from the bed they were still confining him to. He was so tired of laying down.

"I ain't exactly worried 'bout chargin' cards right now."

"No, I'd imagine not. Your physical injuries are healing well, including the scar from the operation I did to repair some internal bleeding. You are lucky to be alive, frankly."

"Oui. Lucky." Remy responded sarcastically. When would Hank get the hint and leave him alone?

Hank gave him a hard look. "I'll need to run some more tests to monitor your progress before I can let you get up and about."

"More tests?"

"Yes. More tests."

Remy sighed again. "Dis ain't lucky."

------

Somehow, Remy knew Storm would find him here, sitting on the roof alone, staring out across the grounds of the Xavier Institute. It had been such a struggle to climb out of his bed and find his way to his room. It was night and the X-Men were sleeping. Even Hank had finally left him alone, after running test after test after test… But the stumbling down the halls in the Men's Wing had been worth it just to find some clothes to wear other than a hospital-style robe. He never thought he'd be so happy just to be wearing pants.

And if getting to his room had been hard, climbing onto the roof had been near impossible.

But again, it had been worth it.

Storm's footsteps were gentle as she approached, and were as familiar as the quiet snowfall, which left a momentary white dusting on the shingles before melting away. He wondered when the weather patterns of New York had become familiar to him, a Louisiana bayou boy.

Their meetings here seemed almost routine now. She seemed to know by instinct when he'd be here, and even more, when he needed her to be here too.

He was grateful for her presence, as she sat next to him, her body radiating warmth with the blanket of heat she created by her powers. Still he shivered. Even with her next to him, he felt alone.

His empathy was shot. Sometimes he was thankful, thankful that his mind was cut off from anything but Emily's lingering shadow. It was a feeling of bitterness, of mourning that made him want that.

But right now he wished so desperately that he could use it for just a moment, to feel the warmth of another human mind in his. Instead, he felt only cold.

"It is a beautiful evening," Storm said simply. No questions, no prodding.

He loved her patience with him.

The sun had fallen beneath the horizon about an hour ago, leaving the Xavier Institute in a hazy light provided by streetlamps that lined the surrounding paths, and the window lights still on inside.

"You ever feel alone, Stormy?" He looked at her, and she seemed about to speak, but he continued before she could, looking away again. "I mean really alone. Like you're seeing everyone around you through a glass wall and even touching them isn't real, even talking to them is like screaming inside a soundproof room where all you get are echoes."

He felt her staring at him, analyzing his expression—no, not analyzing. Storm didn't analyze, she felt. That was why he enjoyed her company so much.

Usually her doing this made him uncomfortable, but for some reason, it didn't now.

"When I was a child," she said, "after my parents died, I felt that I was alone. I felt forever trapped under that rubble, and that no one could ever reach me. Later I realized that wall of rubble wasn't real anymore; it was in my head. I knew then that I didn't have to be alone."

He turned to her, giving her a hard look. "You don't still feel alone?" he asked. She held his gaze for a moment, looked away. It was all he needed for an answer.

"I was afraid to use my power as an empath. Tol' myself I was respecting the privacy of others. Really, I was jus' afraid of touching anyone dat closely. Now all I want ta do is touch someone like dat."

"Your empathy is gone?"

"Yeah. Burned out. She told me it would heal and come back some day."

He saw Storm looking at him again, from the peripheral of his vision. "She?"

It occurred to him suddenly that Storm had no idea what he was talking about. He sighed, running his hands through his hair and resting his head in them, elbows on his bent knees. The touch of his own fingers felt cold to his skin. "Her name was Emily. She was from de future, an' she came back in time to stop de Human/Mutant War from starting. Was convinced I was de key to dat an' so since Antarctica she's been livin' in my head."

Ororo stared at him for a long moment. When she spoke, she said, "What happened to her?"

He paused. "She's dead. She signed her death warrant de day she came here, knew she could only survive so long like dat." He shook his head, impulsively. It was hard to miss her this much.

"I'm sorry, Remy."

He shrugged. Snow was beginning to cling to his clothes.

"And thank you."

He lifted his head and looked at her, surprised, raising an eyebrow. "F'r what?"

She smiled at him, a gesture that somehow felt comforting. "I have never heard you so honest and forthcoming before, even with me. It's… refreshing. Most people around here are suspicious of everyone these day."

He watched her eyes for a moment. They looked sad, and he could tell she was in a reflective mood, her lips set in a fine line and her mind far away. When she seemed to come back to herself, he nodded. "Dat de wall of rubble you were talkin' about?"

She smiled at him, this time a solemn gesture. "Yes."

"Hey, Stormy?"

"Yes?"

"Let's not have dat wall between us. K?"

"Okay, Remy."

"Good."

She was watching him, and she seemed somehow fragile to him. He wondered if he looked the same to her right now. There was a moment's hesitation before she leaned over and hugged him.

"This Emily, I can tell she meant something to you, my friend," she whispered, still embracing him.

He closed his eyes. "Oui."

"We have all lost loved ones along the way. I learned something else from my parents' death."

"What's dat?"

"It is much worse if you think the loss to be in vain. But you cannot let it be. Don't let Emily's loss be in vain either."

She let go then and looked at him. He realized she was crying.

"Stormy…" His voice came out quiet, tentative. "What is it?"

She shook her head fiercely. "A lot has happened while you have been asleep."

A knot seemed to form in his chest. "Tell me."

She smiled, then. A small, sympathetic smile. "No. Not now. Now is the time for you to consider your loss. There is time for the rest tomorrow." She stood quickly, before he could argue.

"Goodnight, Remy."

He knew there was no fighting her. "Night, 'Ro."

She was gone then and he was once again alone, wondering what it was that had her so distraught. Did he even want to know? He was glad in a way that she hadn't told him yet. She was right.

Now was Emily's time.

He looked out over the Xavier Institute, an establishment that envisioned the safe harboring, growth and development of mutants as well as the peaceful coexistence between all humanity—both Sapien and Superior. It was true that Remy had never been fully committed to Xavier's dream. He had felt a loyalty to the team, and believed that they did good things, but there was the part of him that never quite got fighting for people that hated you. He understood now.

Emily had died for that fight.

He closed his eyes, felt for the residual scent of her in his mind that became less and less every day, and he made a promise to her ghost.

Her death would never be in vain.

_**Finis**_

* * *

Well folks, it's been a long ride to get this far. Thanks so much to all of you that have stuck with me, and endured the infrequency of my updates to this story arc. You have no idea what your support has meant to me. There are more stories on the way, and with a little luck, the chapters will come much more frequently from here on out. This story has left many loose ends, but fear not, all will be tied up soon. I have two more stories planned before I even think of calling the Diamonds Arc complete. You should be seeing the next one start within the week. I debated putting the first chapter of it as an epilogue to this story, but I think that this is the place to end "Futures in the Mist." The sequel to this story is titled "Finalities in the Wind."

Thanks again for hanging around, and until the next story, happy reading!


	18. Author's Note

**Author's Note:**

This is just an announcement for those of you who have this story on Story Alert.

The first chapter for the sequel to Futures in the Mist is now posted.

It is titled: **"Diamonds Arc Story 4: Finalities in the Wind".**

All of the stories in the Diamonds Arc have been renamed to match this format (Diamonds Arc Story #: Story Title).

Thanks!

-Galaxia


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